LTTE's Elilan surrendered to SLA on 18 May, wife tells BBC

[TamilNet, Sunday, 19 September 2010, 16:21 GMT]
Ananthi Sasitharan, wife of Elilan, former Trincomalee political head of the LTTE, told BBC Tamil service that she and her three daughters witnessed her husband and hundreds of other LTTE members surrendering to the Sri Lanka Army (SLA) soldiers on 18th May 2009, after the war has come to an end. "I have been trying to trace my husband and has not been successful to locate his whereabouts. I have no doubt that Sri Lanka's president knows where my husband and others who surrendered are being held," she told the BBC.
Full story >>

TID torture Tamil detainees held under PTA

[TamilNet, Sunday, 19 September 2010, 07:07 GMT]
The Terrorism Investigation Division (TID) of Sri Lanka government continues to torture hundreds of Tamil youths arrested and detained under the Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA) without trial, a journalist who had met the detainees said, under conditions of anonymity. Meanwhile, Sri Lanka government intends to keep the Tamil youths who were combatants of Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in detention for five more years, sources close to Sri Lanka prison authorities said.
Full story >>

Speaker to appoint nominee to Parliamentary Council if UNP fails

[TamilNet, Sunday, 19 September 2010, 05:00 GMT]
The Speaker of Sri Lanka Parliament will be entrusted with the powers to appoint the relevant representative to the parliamentary council if the Opposition Leader Ranil Wickremasinghe fails to appoint a member within next week. Ranil Wickremasinghe Thursday nominated Tamil national Alliance (TNA) parliamentarian M. A Sumanthiran as his nominee to the Parliamentary Council but the TNA MP rejected the nomination. Since then Ranil Wickremasinghe has not nominated a new person, SL parliament sources said.
Full story >>

Properties of uprooted families in Vadamaraadchi East plundered by SLA

[TamilNet, Friday, 17 September 2010, 06:24 GMT]
Sri Lanka Army (SLA) and Sri Lanka Navy (SLN) have constructed many bases and camps in the properties of uprooted families and on the coastal villages of Vadamaraadchi East using the roofing, door and windows plundered from the shops and houses left by the residents, persons who visited the area said. The areas from Naakar-koayil to Kaddaik-kaadu are fully occupied by SLA and SLN, they further said. Meanwhile, Jaffna Government Agent Ms. Imelda Sukumar has announced that uprooted families from Vadamaraadchi East will be taken to their own places in the second stage of the resettlement plan and that Jaffna SLA Command had given permission for the resettlement.
Full story >>

TNA parliamentarians to visit Valikaamam North HSZ

[TamilNet, Friday, 17 September 2010, 05:51 GMT]
Tamil National Alliance (TNA) spokesman and Jaffna district parliamentarian Suresh Premachandran said that a group of TNA parliamentarians will be visiting Valikaamam North Sri Lanka Army (SLA) occupied High Security Zone (HSZ) once they get the permission from Sri Lanka Ministry of Defence. Meanwhile, Basil Rajapaksa, Sri Lanka minister and brother of SL President Mahinda Rjapaksa who is in Jaffna has again said that the families uprooted from Valikaamam North by SLA will be allowed to resettle in their places excluding the surroundings of Palaali Airport, sources in Jaffna said. Meanwhile, SLA authorities have already marked places in Palaali to construct housing schemes for the colonization of Sinhala families in the lands of Tamils evicted by SLA, sources in Palaali said.
Full story >>

Ancient port near Hambantota had Dravidian name mixed with Prakrit

[TamilNet, Thursday, 16 September 2010, 18:14 GMT]
Jars, Black and Red ware pottery and some timber sections were found in 2008 at a depth of 31 metres under sea, at a probable shipwreck site around 3 km off the coast of Godawaya, between Hambantota and Ambalantota in the Southern Province. Earlier, divers retrieved a stone bench having symbols engraved on it from the site. Stone pillars, probably remains of an old maritime structure were excavated and reported in 2001 at Godawaya fishing village, while a stone anchor was found in the sea near the coast in 2003. A late Brahmi inscription of 2nd century CE found on a rock at the Buddhist temple of Godawaya gives the ancient name of the port as Goda-pavata Patana, which is largely Dravidian mixed with Prakrit.
Full story >>

Tamil youth abducted in Batticaloa

[TamilNet, Thursday, 16 September 2010, 16:21 GMT]
A Tamil youth was abducted by a group of unidentified persons from his house located in Thiruchchenthoor in Kalladi in Batticaloa district Wednesday night. The victim has been identified Munusamy Narenthiran, 30, according to complaints made to the police.
Full story >>

TNA rejects Wickremesinghe’s offer

[TamilNet, Thursday, 16 September 2010, 14:44 GMT]
The Tamil National Alliance (TNA) Thursday refused to give consent to the opposition leader Ranil Wickremesinghe to appoint TNA parliamentarian, M. N. Sumanthiran as his nominee to the Parliamentary Council constituted under the 18th Amendment to the Constitution. TNA media spokesman and Jaffna district parliamentarian said Ranil Wickremesinghe wanted the party’s consent to appoint Sumanthiran. TNA has informed Ranil Wickremasinghe that it has opposed the 18th amendment and it will boycott the Parliamentary Council.
Full story >>

SL government responsible for abductions – TMVP

[TamilNet, Thursday, 16 September 2010, 05:23 GMT]
Sri Lanka government should take responsibility for the abductions that have taken place after the war in Eastern Province, the propaganda secretary of Tamil Makkal Viduthalai Pullikal (TMVP), a political-cum-paramilitary party led by Eastern Province Chief Minister, Sivanesathurai Chandrakanthan alias Pillayan, said in a meeting held in Kommaanththu’rai in Batticaloa district. Meanwhile, Batticaloa district residents said that armed men alleged to be Pillayan group and Karuna group abduct persons and rob houses in the outskirt villages of the district. Karnuna group is also a political-cum-paramilitary party led by Sri Lanka minister Vinayagamoorthy Muralitharan alias Karuna.
Full story >>

UN Rep meets Champoor uprooted families

[TamilNet, Thursday, 16 September 2010, 05:14 GMT]
The Champoor Displaced Persons Welfare Association (CDPWA) on behalf of around six thousand five hundred persons of about 1,300 uprooted Tamil families from Moothoor east Wednesday handed over a memorandum to Neil Buhne, the UN Resident Representative and Human Coordinator appealing to him to take steps to ensure their early resettlement in their traditional villages now being declared as high security zone by the Sri Lankan forces and acquired for the proposed coal mine power plant with the assistance of the Government of India.
Full story >>

SL government ‘explores’ development of Jaffna district

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 15 September 2010, 15:21 GMT]
Sri Lanka government which had not contributed to the development of Jaffna district in any significant manner is showing off the development activities in Jaffna peninsula funded by World Bank and Asian Development Bank as if it is spending its own money on them, government officials who participated in SL government’s Jaffna District Development Meeting (DDM) held in Jaffna Secretariat Wednesday said. The meeting was similar to the earlier ones where on going development activities and future plans for development were just ‘explored’ into without any concrete allocation of funds for them. On the whole it was lip service paid to the ‘development of North’ Sri Lanka government claims to be interested in, they added.
Full story >>

Tension in Ratnapura following attack on Upcountry Tamils

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 15 September 2010, 08:18 GMT]
More than 100 Upcountry Tamil families were displaced after Sinhalese estate workers burnt their houses and properties in Kiribatgala rubber plantation in Nivithigala in Ratnapura district Monday night. The attack on Tamils comes following the killing of a Sinhala estate watcher who was found dead Monday after being abducted by unidentified persons Sunday night. Tension prevails between in the district following the outbreak of the violence. Tamils in the district complain that they have been increasingly targeted by Sinhala mobs in recent times.
Full story >>

European Court to review Jagath Dias case

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 15 September 2010, 03:43 GMT]
A. Muller-Elschner, the legal secretary to the Registrar of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), said in a letter to the Swiss Council of Eelam Tamils (SCET), the democratically elected country council of Eezham Tamils in Switzerland, that the European Court will take up the case against the appointment of ex-SLA commander Jagath Dias as a diplomat to the Sri Lanka embassy in Germany. SCET, the Norwegian Council of Eelam Tamils (NCET) and the US based NGO, Tamils Against Genocide (TAG), had filed an application to the ECHR in July 2010 charging the German government for violating EU Rights conventions by accepting a Sri Lankan military commander, Major General Jagath Dias, an accused in the war crimes.
Full story >>

NP Governor visits restricted areas in Vanni

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 15 September 2010, 02:21 GMT]
Northern Province Governor Major Gen. G. A. Chandrasiri accompanied by some Sinhala parliamentarians and Sri Lanka government officials visited Tuesday some places in Vanni where uprooted people have not been allowed to resettle by occupying Sri Lanka Army (SLA). Meanwhile, some influential sections are trying again to shift Northern Provincial Council (NPC) and its offices to Ki’linochchi from Trincomalee, a move which had been suspended by Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa in August, sources in Trincomalee said.
Full story >>

‘Extreme position of appeasement’

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 15 September 2010, 00:50 GMT]
“Sri Lanka sits at the crossroads of two significant contemporary geopolitical shifts. Firstly there is the rise and resurgence of China as a regional power; and secondly, many Western governments have lost their credibility in terms of morality, human rights advocacy and international law due to interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan. The SL government is masterful in its diplomacy and deals with a variety of governments, which are sometimes at odds e.g.: Iran & Israel, India & Pakistan, USA & China. This puts SL in a unique geopolitical position”, says ‘Minutes of the Sri Lanka Roundtable’, convened by Centre for Peacebuilding in Switzerland last month. While the West in its inability opts for extreme position of appeasement towards genocidal Colombo, Tamil voices against subjugation are ironically viewed as ‘extremism’, commented diaspora circles.
Full story >>

2 Tamils die in road accident in Marawila

[TamilNet, Monday, 13 September 2010, 17:49 GMT]
A man and a five year old boy, both Tamils, died in a road accident when a Prisons Department vehicle crashed against a passenger van from behind at Marawila Sunday morning. Seven others were injured in that accident, Marawilla police said.
Full story >>

Tamil youth dies in road accident in Vavuniyaa

[TamilNet, Monday, 13 September 2010, 17:45 GMT]
A Tamil youth died on the spot and another seriously wounded when a container vehicle crashed against a stationary motor cycle in Vavuniyaa Sunday around 7:00 p.m. The motor cycle had met with an accident colliding against a bicycle near Thennamaruthoadai Chanthi in Poonthoaddam in Vavuniyaa.
Full story >>

Alternative Development

[TamilNet, Monday, 13 September 2010, 06:35 GMT]
There is no point in diaspora arguing with officials and politicians over development, because, they ‘do know’ what they are doing. Instead the diaspora should think creatively in identifying overlapping areas of interest in development, without compromising the national aspirations. Human resource development is a potential area, needed both by the ‘developers’ and nationalists. Eezham Tamils have credible institutions at home and grass root organisations in the diaspora to carryout it. Ask the developers whether they are prepared to give direct aid. If they decline and if their interest is only in prodding the diaspora to Rajapaksa and in devising KP-line of politics, then the diaspora need not care for them.
Full story >>

TNA attends SL District Development meeting in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Monday, 13 September 2010, 04:48 GMT]
Tamil National Alliance (TNA) Jaffna district parliamentarians Suresh Premachandran and Sarvanabavan participated in the Sri Lanka government’s Jaffna District Development meeting Sunday in Jaffna. This is the first time TNA parliamentarians are participating in the District Development Meeting in Jaffna district. Suresh Premachandran had issued a message to local media Saturday night that TNA will attend the Sunday meeting. Sri Lanka Minister of Disaster Management A. H. M. Fowzi and SL Minister of Traditional Industries and Small Enterprise Development Douglas Devananda jointly chaired the Sunday meeting.
Full story >>

Desecration of Saiva temples in Trincomalee district continues

[TamilNet, Sunday, 12 September 2010, 14:39 GMT]
Desecration of Saiva temples in the Eastern Province, especially in Trincomalee district, continues causing serious concern among the Saiva community. Last week unidentified men had desecrated three Saiva koayils in Thampalakaamam, a traditional village in Trincomalee. The head of the statue of Vairavar in the historic Aathi Koa'neasvarar Temple and the head of the Naakathampi’raan statue in Kaa'limeadu Mari Amman Koayil were found smashed and the holy trident in Paddimeadu Chinthaama'ni Pi’l’laiyaar Koayil was found missing, according to complaints lodged with Thampalakaamam Police.
Full story >>