SLA, police conduct search operation in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Thursday, 19 August 2010, 05:46 GMT]
Sri Lanka Army (SLA) and police have been conducting a search operation throughout Wednesday night in Kokkuvil area where three Sinhala furniture traders were knifed Monday night. Unconfirmed sources in Jaffna said that Koappaay police have arrested three Tamil furniture traders suspected of involvement in the attack. Koappaay police, however, did not confirm the arrest.
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Refuse asylum to Tamil boat refugees, Sri Lanka tells Canada

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 18 August 2010, 23:36 GMT]
The Sri Lankan High commission in Ottawa has made a representation to the Canadian Government urging Canada to refuse asylum and citizenship to the Tamil migrants who came to Canada on a ship seeking asylum, the state run Dinamina newspaper said in a front page news article. According to the article, Sri Lanka has claimed that majority of the Tamil migrants comprised of members of the LTTE organization.
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Senior envoy of Indian government to visit Sri Lanka in September

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 18 August 2010, 21:10 GMT]
Indian Foreign Minister Nirupama Rao who was in Chennai Wednesday met Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi at his residence in Gopalapuram. Speaking to the media after meeting the CM she said that a senior officer of the Central government will be visiting Sri Lanka as a special envoy in September and that he will meet the Tamils affected by the war and learn about the resettlement of the displaced Tamils and explore ways to provide livelihoods for them, sources in Chennai said.
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The Hindu review accuses LTTE for failure of peace

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 18 August 2010, 10:31 GMT]
“To those who knew that the ceasefire was built on a glaringly faulty premise — that the LTTE wanted a negotiated settlement within a united Sri Lanka — its eventual breakdown was foretold on the day it was signed,” writes, Nirupama Subramanian in reviewing a book in The Hindu Tuesday. The review was favourably highlighting a point that Tamil polity should drop ‘liberation’ to focus on securing economic rights for the people. “They are absolutely right since the development they mean is not even economic liberation of people,” responded Tamil circles, adding that the previous generation of Indians shouldn’t have asked for independence but should have focused on development the British colonialism was undertaking.
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SLN creates rift between Northern, Tamil Nadu fishermen

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 18 August 2010, 07:33 GMT]
Local fishermen in Valveddiththu'rai in Northern Sri Lanka, urged by Sri Lanka Navy (SLN), chased away the Indian fishing trawlers illegally fishing in Valveddiththu'ai seas Tuesday night as talks between the fisheries society representatives of Tamil Nadu and Northern Sri Lanka began Wednesday. Fishermen societies in Jaffna peninsula appealed to the local fishermen not to fall prey to the malicious efforts of Sri Lanka government and its armed forces to ruin the cordial relationship between the fishermen of Tamil Nadu and Northern Sri Lanka, sources in Vadamaraadchi said.
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Canada paints 'terrorism' to escape responsibility

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 17 August 2010, 14:41 GMT]
Canadian government which tilted the balance by branding the defensive national struggle of Eezham Tamils as 'international terrorism' and was thus one of the abetters of Colombo in the war, is in its attempt to escape responsibility now breaches all bounds by painting a picture of 'terrorism' even for the arrival of refugees, Tamil circles said. "Canada government foments reaction over Tamil refugee boat," fans anti-immigrant prejudice, and boosts "Sri Lanka's authoritarian, communalist government - a government that is implicated in horrific war crimes," wrote Keith Jones in The World Socialist Website, Tuesday. Citing Public Safety Minister Vic Toews, he noted that Canada government may also use the country’s anti-terrorism laws to prosecute any Canadians of Tamil origin who helped fund the passage of their relatives to Canada on the MV Sun Sea, by linking the refugees to the LTTE.
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Batticaloa district TNA parliamentarians asked to appear in court

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 17 August 2010, 14:09 GMT]
Batticaloa Magistrate Mr.V. Ramakamalan Tuesday issued notice to the three Batticaloa district Tamil National Alliance (TNA) parliamentarians C. Yogeswaran, K. Selvarajah and P. Ariyanethran and two others, R.Thurairatnam, member of the Eastern Provincial Council and the President of the Batticaloa District Unemployed Graduates Association, to appear in court on September 7 on an application filed by Kaatththaankudi police.
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Sri Lanka's Prime Minister says, Rajapaksa strongest man in Sri Lanka’s history

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 17 August 2010, 10:48 GMT]
Sri Lanka’s Prime Minister D. M. Jayaratne said that incumbent President Mahinda Rajapaksa is the strongest man in Sri Lanka’s 2500 year old history, the state owned Dinamina newspaper said in a front page article. Speaking at the opening of the Hambantota Port, Premier Jayaratne said Sri Lanka has seen kings such as Parakramabahu, Dutugamunu and Walagamba build rivers for the country, but no one has seen an individual such as Mahinda Rajapaksa who has taken Sri Lanka's development drive to the highest level possible within a short span of just four years.
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Traditional Hindu temples in East destroyed, replaced with Buddhist Viharas: MP

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 17 August 2010, 06:43 GMT]
"Sri Lanka government is systematically destructing Hindu temples in the Eastern Province and constructing Buddhist Viharas in their places and one cannot remain passive while the Sinhala Buddhist chauvinists continue to destroy Hindu temples and appropriate the traditional Tamil lands for the occupying Sri Lanka Army (SLA)," S. Yogeswaran, Tamil National Alliance (TNA) parliamentarian for Batticaloa district said.
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Ma’ndu kuminthaan

[TamilNet, Monday, 16 August 2010, 22:13 GMT]
The place where silt accumulated as dunes
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SLA extends HSZ in Ki'linochchi encroaching traditional Tamil villages

[TamilNet, Monday, 16 August 2010, 17:28 GMT]
Sri Lanka government has instructed the Government Agents of Ki'linochchi and Mullaiththeevu districts not to resettle anyone in an area of 200 acres in the adjoining traditional Tamil villages of the already declared area as the High Security Zone (HSZ) of occupying Sri Lanka Army (SLA) in an extent of 300 acres in Ira'naimadu in Vanni, Ki'linochchi Government Secretariat sources said. The 500 acres of land encroached by SLA are to be used to colonize it with Sinhala families of SLA personnel from South and other Sinhala families, depriving the Tamil residents of the area from cultivating their paddy fields irrigated by Ira'naimadu reservoir, sources in Vanni said.
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3 Sinhala traders knifed, injured in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Monday, 16 August 2010, 17:26 GMT]
A gang of eight men arriving on bicycles inflicted injuries with swords on three Sinhala traders Monday around 7:15 p.m. in Kokkuvil in Jaffna where they were selling furniture along Aadiyapaatham road, sources in Jaffna said. Jaffna police rushed two seriously injured men to Jaffna Teaching Hospital. The Sri Lanka Army (SLA) officers who were at the place following the incident told news reporters that the attack was not based on Sinhala-Tamil ethnic rivalry. Meanwhile, unidentified persons had set fire to a shop of a Sinhala trader in the same area recently, the sources added.
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Attempt to misuse resettled women in Vanni foiled

[TamilNet, Monday, 16 August 2010, 06:38 GMT]
Tamil National Alliance (TNA) parliamentarians Saravanabavan and Sritharan intervened and stopped Sunday the attempt of a private company from Kandy in Ki'linochchi town enticing young women recently allowed to resettle in Vanni, with job opportunities in South Sri Lanka with attractive salaries. The parliamentarians, on suspicion raised by local people about the true intent of the company, visited the enlisting place in front of Ki'linochchi Government Secretariat and prevented the unsuspecting young women being taken away to the South.
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Fishermen society delegation from North leaves for Tamil Nadu

[TamilNet, Monday, 16 August 2010, 06:01 GMT]
A delegation of 23 representatives of the fishermen societies in North will leave for Tamil Nadu Monday afternoon to Trichi to participate in meetings with the representatives of major fishermen societies in Tamil Nadu, sources in Jaffna said. Two Catholic priests from Mannaar and Jaffna who had organized the programme will be accompanying the delegation. Meanwhile, Sri Lanka government has announced that two officers of the Sri Lanka Fisheries Ministry will be present in the meetings between the representatives to be held in Tamil Nadu. This reveals the keen interest of Sri Lanka government to learn first hand the nature and scope of the meetings in Tamil Nadu, the sources added.
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Revisiting Sinhala nationalist mindset

[TamilNet, Monday, 16 August 2010, 00:15 GMT]
As long as Sinhala nationalist mindset deny the antiquity and right of Eezham Tamil nation in the island and unable to come out with appropriate political models, no ‘reconciliation’ will be possible and there will be only subjugation. The Tamils don’t deny the Sinhala nation in the island but they are not reciprocated. It has become a must that the national question be decided with secession for any genuine reconciliation at least in the future. The ‘kohomba kankariya’ model of the past envisaged by some academics, who want to be ‘Tamil and Sri Lankan,’ will not work under current norms of Sinhala nationalism. If the current subjugation of Tamils continues there won’t be anyone in the island in future even to read what these academics have written in Tamil, says an academic of Tamil studies in Jaffna.
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Nalloor Kanthasuvaami temple annual festival begins

[TamilNet, Sunday, 15 August 2010, 06:06 GMT]
The annual festival of the historic Nalloor Kanthasuvaami temple in Jaffna will begin Sunday with the Sacred Festival Flag hoisting ceremony (Kodiyeattam) and will continue until 8 September. An unprecedented number of devotees are expected to attend the festival and transport and other necessary arrangements have been made by Jaffna Municpal Council (JMC) authorities which said that women attending the festivals should wear saree, sources in Jaffna said.
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Indian, Northern fishermen society representatives meet to discuss comon issues

[TamilNet, Sunday, 15 August 2010, 05:20 GMT]
A group of 23 representatives of the fisheries societies in Northern Sri Lanka are to meet their counterparts in Tamil Nadu to discuss matters including the illegal invasion of Indian fishing trawlers into the seas of Northern Sri Lanka and the escalating attacks by Sri Lanka Navy (SLN) on Tamil Nadu fishermen. The gorup, led by S. Thavaratnam, will hold discussion from 14 to 22 August, fisheries society sources in Jaffna said. Though a similar meeting had been arranged two years ago it had to be abandoned as Sri Lanka Defence Ministry and the Indian High Commission to Sri Lanka had not permitted the meeting to take place.
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Boat with 490 Tamil refugees docks in British Columbia

[TamilNet, Saturday, 14 August 2010, 04:50 GMT]
After spending nearly three months in sea, MV Sun Sea, a 59-metre Thai cargo ship, docked near Victoria, Canada Friday with nearly 490 Tamil refugees who fled Sri Lanka seeking safety and security in a foreign land thousands of miles away from northern Sri Lanka, their place of birth. The Canadian authorities boarded the ship the night before to bring the ship to the shore. 90 women and 45 children are estimated to be part of the migrant group, according to reports from Canada. The political climate will engulf migrants in immigration legal battles especially after the controversy surrounding the detention and later release of 76 Tamil migrants from the ship Ocean Lady last October, relatives of the migrants speculated.
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Police instructs Tamils in Kotahena to register their presence

[TamilNet, Saturday, 14 August 2010, 04:38 GMT]
Sri Lanka Police Thursday early morning conducted a cordon and search operation in Kotahena in Colombo district for several houses from 4:30 a.m.. Police personnel engaged in the operation instructed Tamil residents to register their presence in the location with the police immediately. Some Tamil residents argued with the police personnel that there was no need for them to register their presence with the police as the clause to the effect had been withdrawn from the Emergency Regulations now in force.
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Colombo's Court Martial finds Fonseka guilty of engaging in politics

[TamilNet, Friday, 13 August 2010, 14:26 GMT]
Colombo's military court martial on Friday found the former Sri Lanka Army commander General (retd) Sarath Fonseka guilty of engaging in political activity while still in uniform, Colombo media reported Friday evening. Colombo has sentenced him for a 'dishonorable discharge from rank pending approval of the President,' media reports further said.
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