SLA replaces STF in Paduvaankarai in Batticaloa district

[TamilNet, Sunday, 26 September 2010, 03:25 GMT]
Sri Lanka Army (SLA) troops are moving into Paduvaankarai area occupying camps vacated by Special Task Force (STF) of Sri Lanka Police. STF has started withdrawing from their camps located in the villages of Vellaave’li, Paalaiyadiveddai, Periya Poaratheevu and Maavadi Munmaari in Paduvaankarai area since Saturday.
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20th death anniversary of Chavukkadai massacre of Tamils held

[TamilNet, Sunday, 26 September 2010, 03:20 GMT]
The people of the village of Chavukkadai village located in Batticaloa district observed the twentieth anniversary of the Chavukkadai massacre of forty-two Tamils including men, women, children and elders by Sinhala hoodlums on 20th September 1990. Relations of the victims and people of the village held special prayers in Saiva koayils and churches in Chavukkadai.
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'EU should coordinate powers to bring justice to Eezham Tamils'

[TamilNet, Saturday, 25 September 2010, 05:08 GMT]
While powers and countries like Norway, preoccupied with geo-strategy and ‘development’, ignore the fundamentals of the crisis in the island, the European Union should work towards convincing and coordinating them in bringing political justice to Eezham Tamils, said 62-year-old Jegatheeswaran Arunachalam, an Australian national who witnessed the war in Vanni to its end. The EU, consisting of old nations that have gone through the gravity of national question in history, is in a better position to grasp appropriate solutions, he said. “As an immediate action, the EU should send a fact finding mission that includes members of the diaspora, and it should work for an internationally guaranteed situation for the diaspora to independently reach out its kith and kin in the island”, Jegatheeswaran, now on a Walk for Justice mission across Europe with two fellow activists, told TamilNet Friday.
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Jaffna Public Library services decline due to lack of funds

[TamilNet, Saturday, 25 September 2010, 03:15 GMT]
Jaffna Municipal Council (JMC) which has to allocate funds for the administration and maintenance expenses of Jaffna Public Library faces serious impediments in fulfilling its responsibility as Sri Lanka government has failed to support JMC with any considerable allocation of funds. Consequently, JMC administration which depends entirely on local revenues for its expenses has cut down its financial allocation to Jaffna Public Library forcing it to reduce the number of its employees and to close certain sections. Meanwhile, Sri Lanka government and the JMC administration dominated by ruling United People’s Freedom Alliance take false pride in showing Jaffna Public Library as a proof of the ‘development’ claimed to have been achieved by SL government in the North to foreign emissaries and people from other parts of Sri Lanka visiting Jaffna peninsula, Jaffna residents said.
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US University calls for Sri Lanka war crimes investigations

[TamilNet, Saturday, 25 September 2010, 02:10 GMT]
The Human Rights law clinic at the Washington D.C.-based American University, in a report released to the media Friday, proposed that the United Nations should establish a War Crimes Tribunal for Sri Lanka. "The Tamil community's need for truth, justice, and redress will continue to be marginalized without outside intervention. Marginalization and impunity for human rights violations may once again lead to unrest in the country and will impede justice and accountability," the report said.
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SLA intruder attacked by house-owner in Vanni

[TamilNet, Friday, 24 September 2010, 11:33 GMT]
A Sri Lanka Army soldier, who attempted to enter a house Thursday night while the house-owner, his wife and two daughters were fast asleep, was hacked and cut by the owner of the house, civilian sources in Kanakaampikaik-ku'lam in Ira'nai-madu told TamilNet Friday.
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Tamil businessman abducted in Wellawatte

[TamilNet, Friday, 24 September 2010, 03:57 GMT]
Unidentified men arriving in a white van abducted a Tamil businessman from his shop in Wellawatte Monday night, according to a complaint made to Wellawatte police by his relatives. The police said they are investigating into the abduction to ensure whether he was abducted for ransom or personal enmity.
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Colombo Crime Division arrests press owner in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Thursday, 23 September 2010, 18:25 GMT]
A special team of Colombo Crime Division arrested the owner of Churapi Achchakam (printing press), C. Kuruthev, in Jaffna Tuesday and took him to Colombo for inquiry, sources in Jaffna said. Kuruthev’s brother, the General Manager of the Tamil daily Namathu Eezhanaadu, C. Sivamaharajah, had been assassinated at his house in Thellippazhai in August 2006. Sri Lanka Minister Douglas Devananda, the head of Eelam People's Democratic Party (EPDP), had sought to acquire Churapi Achchakam to print a Tamil Daily in the name of Thinamurasu to which Kuruthev had not consented, media circles in Jaffna said.
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‘Norway wrongs by cooperating with Colombo’

[TamilNet, Thursday, 23 September 2010, 11:32 GMT]
The Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg is naive if he believes normalisation of relations with Colombo will lay the basis for reconciliation. It is wrong to normalise relations with a regime that uses the army to expel Tamils from their land and settle Sinhalese there. Before normalising diplomatic ties Stoltenberg should demand Rajapaksa to accept UN investigation, said Norwegian Red Party deputy leader Bjørnar Moxnes, Wednesday, responding to media reports that Stoltenberg is the first Western head of government to meet Rajapaksa with a cooperation agenda after the civil war. Meanwhile, Mr. Majoran Vivekananthan, managing editor of Utrop said “it is unwise to let Solheim set the terms for Norway's relationship with Sri Lanka until a thorough evaluation of Norwegian and Solheim's role in the failed peace process is carried out.”
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Two teenagers killed in train accident in Wattala

[TamilNet, Thursday, 23 September 2010, 10:18 GMT]
Two Tamil teenagers were killed in a train accident Thursday around 7:00 a.m. at Hunupitiya railway track in Wattala, Police said. The victims had failed to hear the train as they were using earphones of their mobile phones while walking in the rail track.
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Compensation not paid to uprooted families in Batticaloa district

[TamilNet, Thursday, 23 September 2010, 03:53 GMT]
Sri Lanka government has failed to pay compensation to the families uprooted from their homes in Batticaloa district due to Sri Lanka Army (SLA) 2006 offensives on places like Paduvaankarai who are languishing in the interim camps in Batticaloa town, Batticaloa district Tamil National Alliance (TNA) parliamentarian P. Selvarasa said. Though this matter had been brought to the notice of Sri Lanka Deputy Minister of Rehabilitation on several occasions no action has been taken by the minister, he added.
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Speaker to recommend 2 MPs to SL Parliamentary Council

[TamilNet, Thursday, 23 September 2010, 03:13 GMT]
Speaker Chamal Rajapaksa is to recommend two names from among Tamil and Muslim parliamentarians for approval to Sri Lanka’s President as nominees to the Parliamentary Council as Prime Minister D. M. Jayaretna and the Opposition Leader Ranil Wickremasinghe failed to nominate as required by the 18th amendment within the stipulated seven day period, Acting Secretary General of Sri Lanka Parliament Neil Iddawela told media Wednesday.
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Ampaa'rai student tops Tamil scholarship exam

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 22 September 2010, 18:23 GMT]
A girl student of Thampiluvil Kalaimakal Viththiyaalayam in Thirukkoayil Education Zone in Ampaa’rai district secured the first place in Tamil medium Year Five scholarship examination 2010.
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Colombo plans to settle Sinhala people in Thiryaay in Trincomalee district

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 22 September 2010, 18:02 GMT]
Due to pressure from the Buddhist priests of Kirihandu Seya Buddhist temple situated in the traditional Tamil village of Thiriyaay in Trincomalee district, the Government Agent of Trincomalee, Major Gen. (Retd) Ranjit de Silva has stopped the restoration of Neelappa’nikkan tank in Thiriyaay which feeds about 3,000 acres of paddy fields of the residents evicted by Sri Lanka Army (SLA), sources in Trincomalee said. Sri Lanka Minister of Irrigation and Road Development M. S. Uthumalebbe had recently inaugurated the restoration of the tank on the requests of the people of Thiriyaay. Meanwhile, the residents of Thiriyaay said that this is part of a subtle move by the chauvinist elements in Sri Lanka government to attach more lands to the Buddhist temple in order to settle Sinhalese from South.
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Colombo hurriedly readies military colony in Ki'linochchi

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 22 September 2010, 07:34 GMT]
One hundred houses in the military occupation scheme consisting twelve thousand houses by the Sri Lanka government in Ki’linochchi district to colonize the Tamil land of Vanni with Sinhala families of Sri Lanka Army (SLA) are being hurriedly prepared for occupation. Families of one hundred SLA officers will take possession of them in an event to be held shortly, informed sources in Ki’linochchi said. Arrangements are under way for the event in which key persons of Sri Lanka Defence Ministry will take part. Meanwhile, the owners of the land, all of them Tamils, their properties encroached by Sri Lanka government for colonisation, are not allowed even to go to their places where the military colony is being constructed. Informed Tamil officials in Vanni also said that Colombo is using foreign funds donated in the name of resettlement of uprooted families of Vanni.
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Complaints against SL Deputy Minister’s empty promises

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 21 September 2010, 06:52 GMT]
Sri Lanka Deputy Minister of Rehabilitation, Vinayagamoorthy Muralitharan alias Karuna, has failed to fulfill his promises to solve the drinking water problem of the people of Kuruma’nve’li and Murungkaiyadi and the difficulties caused by the break down of the boat service between Thu’raineelaava’nai and Annamalai in Batticaloa district, the people of the areas said. Tamil National Alliance (TNA) Batticaloa district parliamentarian P. Selvarasa had raised these issues two months ago in the District Development meeting presided by the Deputy Minister. There is no use in Muralitharn being a Deputy Minister in Sri Lanka government when he hasn’t the power to solve even these problems, the people said.
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Former Tamil SLA accomplice abducted in Batticaloa

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 21 September 2010, 06:11 GMT]
A gang of unidentified armed men arriving in a van abducted a Tamil youth who had operated with Sri Lanka Army (SLA) during the war, on 15 September at Kalladi in Batticaloa district, according to complaints made by his wife to Batticaloa police. She had first complained at the office of Tamil Makkal Viduthalai Pulikal (TMVP), a political-cum-paramilitary party led by Eastern Province Chief Minister, Sivanesathurai Chandrakanthan alias Pillayan, raising suspicion whether he has joined TMVP on returning from a Middle East country where he had worked after the war, sources in Kalladi said.
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Upcountry Tamils who fled to escape attack live in fear

[TamilNet, Monday, 20 September 2010, 16:23 GMT]
Several upcountry Tamil families had fled from Kiribathgoda rubber plantation in Nivithigala in Ratnapura district 12 September night due to attacks by Sinhala gangs following the killing of a Sinhala estate watcher. The families had sought refuge in the neighbouring estates where they continue to live in fear, unable to return to their homes. The body of the watcher killed was found 13 September. Unidentified persons had abducted the watcher the previous night.
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Polgolla

[TamilNet, Sunday, 19 September 2010, 22:25 GMT]
The coconut-palm grove
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‘Elusive international justice snatches away desire to live’

[TamilNet, Sunday, 19 September 2010, 20:42 GMT]
“We expected some country to step in to resolve the crisis... We believed that a dawn would come, a solution would come through [international] mediation after all the hardships we went through. But, nothing happened. Everything went out of hand for us to end up in the army-controlled area as living corpses. All countries have betrayed us,” told 40-year-old Ananthi Sasitharan, the wife of Elilan, the former Trincomalee Political Head of the LTTE, to BBC Tamil Saturday after complaining to the LLRC that SL President should know the whereabouts of her husband and fellow LTTE officials surrendered through a Catholic Priest in Mullaiththeevu on 18 May 2009. When asked whether she was concerned about repercussions for stating her views publicly from Vanni, the mother of three responded: “I am not afraid. I am prepared to face anything since we don't now live with the zest for life.”
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