Batticaloa MC member reported abducted

[TamilNet, Sunday, 12 September 2010, 10:43 GMT]
The wife of a member of Batticaloa Municipal Council (BMC) complained to Batticaloa police that her husband had gone missing since August 23 after having met BMC Mayor Sivageetha Pirabakaran and a member. She said she suspects that Sri Lanka Army (SLA) Intelligence Unit officers had abducted her husband. A person had called her 22 August night and intimidated that her husband will be abducted by the SLA. Meanwhile, Eastern Province Chief Minister Sivanesathurai Chandrakanthan alias (Pillayan) is reported to have said that SLA and Sri Lanka police in Batticaloa should take responsibility for the abductions in Batticaloa district.
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Gotabaya Rajapaksa in China with military top brass

[TamilNet, Sunday, 12 September 2010, 10:12 GMT]
Gotabaya Rajapaksa, the brother of Sri Lanka President Mahinda Rajapaksa and Sri Lanka Defence Ministry Secretary, left to China Saturday leading a military delegation consisting of the Chiefs of Staff of Sri Lanka Army, Navy and Airforce. China had been one of the mains suppliers of military hardware and expertise during Sri Lanka’s war on Vanni last year.
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‘Take care of symbols’

[TamilNet, Saturday, 11 September 2010, 15:12 GMT]
Tamil Information Centre (TIC), London, has called for a Round Table Discussion on “Postwar Challenges Facing ‘Sri Lanka’s Tamil-Speaking Peoples” on 25 and 26th of this month in London. The discussion is a follow-up of the Zurich gathering held last November. Commenting on the programme a Tamil-speaking social activist in Batticaloa said: “While it is appreciable to work for unity and one voice of the Tamils of the island and to find ways of rebuilding society, livelihood, institutions and political structures for them, symbols of identity that are fundamental to all their regeneration with self-respect should not be compromised. The Tamil-speaking peoples of the island have to shun the identity of ‘Sri Lanka’ that has become a symbol of state oppression ever since the constitutionality of the identity in 1972.”
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Tamil asylum seeker in UK deported to Sri Lanka

[TamilNet, Friday, 10 September 2010, 17:15 GMT]
United Kingdom Immigration officials forcibly deported 31st August a Tamil youth from Sri Lanka who had sought political asylum in United Kingdom a year ago back to Colombo in a Sri Lankan Air Lines flight. The youth was detained in Katunayake International Airport on arrival for more than 24 hours and subjected to interrogation, his family members said. The youth whose fingers are inert due to injuries is admitted to Jaffna Teaching Hospital in a mentally affected state, hospital sources said.
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‘Tamil Youth Conference 2010’ held in Germany

[TamilNet, Friday, 10 September 2010, 08:11 GMT]
Many diaspora Eezham Tamil youths from European countries participated in the ‘Tamil Youth Conference 2010’ held Saturday in Dusseldorf in Germany with the aim of getting to know talented youths engaged in diverse pursuits and to set up a creative website connecting them. The participants shared their views related to the political situation in their homeland, the miserable life of the people there and the confusion prevailing among expatriate Eezham Tamils. The Conference is the outcome of the first effort to rally the diaspora Eehzam Tamil youths in a meeting without leanings to any particular organization, Sanjeevkanth Luxshumikumar, a digital media artist from Germany and one of the organizers of the event said. It is our intention to hold this conference annually and in a large scale, he added.
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SLA obstructs resettlement in Vadamaraadchi East

[TamilNet, Friday, 10 September 2010, 05:13 GMT]
Sri Lanka Army (SLA) has not permitted the families uprooted from Vadamaraadchi brought Thursday morning from Raamaavil and Kudaththanai camps in Thenmaraadchi to be resettled in their houses. SLA has instructed the families to stay in temporary interim camps in Vadamaraadchi East until their houses are renovated, Jaffna District Secretariat sources said. The families, now lodged in government buildings under the control of SLA, complain that they are unable to engage in fishing which is their main livelihood.
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'LLRC lessons advocate permanent subjugation of Tamils'

[TamilNet, Friday, 10 September 2010, 02:30 GMT]
LLRC, the Rajapaksa appointed Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission, is created “neither to learn lessons nor to reconcile but to make Tamils accept and tolerate the crime and cruelty of the Sinhalese and live with repression forever,” says a reader, Sam Thambipillai, in sending a comment on Jayantha Dhanapala’s submission to the LLRC. Colombo’s diplomat Jayantha Dhanapala, who once attempted to contest for the UN Secretary General position, in his submission to the LLRC last month said: “We have learnt a great deal of lessons from the experience of combating one of the most ruthless terrorist groups […] We would be providing something innovative to the international community […] to give some guidance to armies of nation states as to how they should react to such a situation”.
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Some areas in Vadamaraadchi East to be declared HSZ

[TamilNet, Thursday, 09 September 2010, 03:01 GMT]
The uprooted families of Vadamaraadchi East ín Raamaavil and Kudaththanai camps who will be taken to Vadamaraadchi East Thursday will be first lodged in four government buildings and the families from Kaddaikkaadu and Vettilaikkea'ni areas will not be permitted to resettle in their own houses as these villages now occupied by Sri Lanka Navy (SLN) are expected to be declared as High Security Zone (HSZ), Jaffna District Secretariat sources said. The uprooted families from these villages may have to remain in the government buildings and nothing can be confirmed about the resettlement procedure now, according to Maruthangkea'ni Assistant Government Agent Office sources. Meanwhile, Point Pedro-Maruthangkea'ni road through Naakarkoayil that had been closed by Sri Lanka Army (SLA) for the last fifteen years will be opened for public use Thursday from 7:00 a.m to 5:00 p.m, the sources added.
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'Colombo teaches lessons of political culture for South Asia'

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 08 September 2010, 14:22 GMT]
The 18th Constitutional Amendment was passed in Sri Lankan parliament Wednesday with a majority of 144 votes. The Amendment, which has been passed in a rush by the government without pubic debate enables Mahinda Rajapaksa to contest presidential election for any number of terms besides bestowing additional powers in the appointments of key government posts. What is happening to state and democracy in the island of Sri Lanka is a warning to people who are deceived in the ‘democratic’ practices of dynasties and families in the rest of South Asia, political observers said. Sometimes back, a key diplomat of a leading power, looking after South Asia, tolerantly sounded that family rule in the island is typical of contemporary political culture in the region.
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SL Army, Archaeology dept appropriate lands of uprooted Tamils in Maathakal

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 08 September 2010, 07:46 GMT]
Sri Lanka government’s archaeological department with the help of Sri Lanka Army is constructing more structures in Thirvadinilai in Maathakal in Vallikaamam North SLA High Security Zone (HSZ), in addition to a Buddhist temple erected in October 2009. This area had been the home of Tamil families living there since ancient times evicted twenty years ago when Valikaamam North HSZ was established by SLA. Now the families are not allowed even to see their own places in Maathakal while thousands of Sinhala Buddhist pilgrims visit the newly built temple daily which now has become a 'tourist attraction' in Jaffna peninsula, sources in Jaffna said.
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SL parliament adopts emergency extension without voting

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 08 September 2010, 06:32 GMT]
Sri Lanka’s Parliament Tuesday adopted a motion to extend the State of Emergency for another month without voting. Prime Minister D. M. Jayaretna tabled the motion seeking the approval of the parliament. Parliamentarians of the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) who were present in the house did not ask for division when the motion was put to vote.
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Thousands attend Nalloor Thear festival

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 07 September 2010, 08:15 GMT]
The Thear (Chariot) festival of the historic Nalloor Kanthasuvaami Temple in Jaffna town was held Tuesday morning with at least a hundred thousand devotees from all over the island and abroad participating in the annual festival. The opening of A9 road had enabled the devotees to travel easily to Jaffna. Tamils and Sinhala people from South and expatriate Tamils in particular were among the thousands of devotees, sources in Jaffna said.
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TNA to vote against 18th amendment

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 07 September 2010, 04:42 GMT]
The Tamil National Alliance (TNA) that has a parliamentary strength of fourteen members Monday decided to vote against the 18th amendment to the Constitution of Sri Lanka, according to Colombo media reports quoting TNA media spokesman and Jaffna district parliamentarian Suresh Premachandran.
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Sivathamby denies involvement in Tamil writers conference

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 07 September 2010, 02:19 GMT]
Veteran Eezham Tamil scholar Professor Karthigesu Sivathamby, Emeritus Professor of Tamil of the University of Jaffna, Sunday denied a report that he had been in the forefront in organizing the so-called 'World Tamil Writers Conference' in Colombo scheduled for January next year. His denial was carried in the Sunday edition of a leading Tamil weekly, Thinakkural, published from Colombo.
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'India should stop calling Eezham Tamils a minority'

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 07 September 2010, 00:30 GMT]
Eezham Tamils are a nation having historical sovereignty and territory in the island called Sri Lanka. Members of the Indian Establishment should stop humiliating them any further by calling them as ‘minority’. Tamil brethren of Tamil Nadu should be sensitive enough and stop such fundamentally faulty approaches and psyop war of the New Delhi-Chennai-Colombo axis on the historical nation of Eezham Tamils in the island. Edification of Chennai and New Delhi is basic to make the world see the crisis in realistic perspectives. Eezham Tamils, in their casual and social interaction should consciously stop using the recently invented name 'Sri' Lanka of genocidal connotations, when an official Tamil name Ilangkai and another ancient Tamil name Eezham are available to refer to the island, writes TamilNet political commentator in Colombo.
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NJ court dismisses 5 out of 7 charges against alleged fund raising by Tamils

[TamilNet, Monday, 06 September 2010, 02:02 GMT]
During the pre-trial phase of a lawsuit accusing two Tamils and a US-registered Tamil charity, Tamils Rehabilitation Organization (TRO) for allegedly providing funds to the Liberation Tigers which is listed as a "Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO)" by the US Department of State, and thereby aiding the Liberation Tigers in causing the death of several Sri Lanka civilians, U.S. District Judge Dennis Cavanaugh dismissed all but two charges, legal sources in Washington said. The suit was filed by relatives of 24 Sri Lankan civilians under a 1789 US statute Alien Tort Claim Act (ATCA) for the alleged killing by the LTTE. Legal sources in Washington said that the plaintiffs face a difficult legal challenge to establish that the remaining two charges due to the higher thresholds of burden of proof demanded by the Court.
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Sri Lanka stifles attempts to investigate war atrocities - paper

[TamilNet, Sunday, 05 September 2010, 19:06 GMT]
Comparing how the United States accounted any Vietnamese killed as Viet Cong, Peter Bouckert, in the British Daily Guardian said Sunday that "Sri Lanka's defence secretary, Gotabhaya Rajapaksa, has taken such creative accounting to new heights. The United Nations reported that at least 7,000 civilians were killed and tens of thousands wounded during the final months of the brutal conflict with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, which ended in May 2009. But Gotabhaya has repeatedly cast aspersions on the idea that there were any civilian casualties."
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All island District Government Agents conference in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Sunday, 05 September 2010, 15:27 GMT]
Sri Lanka Public Administration Affairs Ministry held its first all island District Government Agents conference in Jaffna Monday in District Secretaiat hall at 9:00 a.m presided by Sri Lanka Minister of Public Administration, John Seneviratne. Jaffna Government Agent Ms. Imelda Sukumar told Tamilnet that past development activities in the North and future devolpment projects were discussed in the meeting. Allocation of funds for various projects was also considered, the GA said.
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174 Tamil youths disappeared in Vanthaa’rumoolai remembered

[TamilNet, Sunday, 05 September 2010, 11:38 GMT]
Parents and relatives of one hundred and seventy four Tamil youths disappeared after arrest by Sri Lanka Army (SLA) from Vanthaa'rumoolai campus of the Eastern University of Sri Lanka in Batticaloa district two decades ago held prayers in memory of them Sunday. SLA troops had come in buses and taken 158 Tamil youths by force from Vanthaa'rumoolai campus on 05.09.1990 and 16 youths eighteen days later on September 23.
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Boycott Colombo International Tamil Writers Conference - Tamil Nadu Creativists

[TamilNet, Sunday, 05 September 2010, 06:36 GMT]
The Association of Tamil Creativists in Tamil Nadu against the Colombo International Tamil Writers Conference to be held in Colombo from 5th to 8th January 2011 has appealed to all Tamil writers to boycott the Colombo conference in a message to media released Tuesday in Chennai. Several leading Tamil creativists including writers, artists, film industry persons and journalists who took part in the Tuesday press meet have signed the appeal.
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