Sri Lanka’s police stations get own buildings in Ki'linochchi, Maangku'lam

[TamilNet, Sunday, 05 December 2010, 12:34 GMT]
Sri Lankan Prime Minister D.M. Jayaratne on Friday opened two new buildings for two key police stations in Vanni, which have been functioning the buildings of LTTE-run administration, at Maangku'lam and Ki'linochchi.
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Ira'naimadu tank spills due to heavy rain

[TamilNet, Sunday, 05 December 2010, 05:55 GMT]
Ira'naimadu irrigation tank in Ki'linochchi district, currently under control of the Sri Lanka Army (SLA), has reached 28.6 inches above its spill level of 28 feet following one week continuous rain, sources in Vanni said. Due to efforts taken by the agricultural sector organizations in the district to ensure the safety of the tank, sluice gates had been opened on December 3 to release the excess water.
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Rajapaksa vengeance orchestrates political shield of captive Tamils in Vanni

[TamilNet, Saturday, 04 December 2010, 11:45 GMT]
Sri Lanka’s president Mahinda Rajapaksa, crest fallen in London, tried to simulate support for him Saturday, by intimidating Eezham Tamils living in captive conditions under his military in Vanni. On Saturday early morning, amidst heavy rains, Sri Lanka army rounded up ‘re-settled’ Tamil civilians in Vanni, including pregnant mothers, elderly and children, and brought them to Ki’linochchi forcing them to carry placards in a ‘demonstration’ that Rajapaksa was doing good to them and it was wrong for the diaspora Tamils in London to reject him. About 500 civilians were caught in the military harassment and those who resisted were attacked by the military. Rajapaksa is determined in demonstrating that the genocidal conditions set by him is the reality to comprehend with, as opposed to diaspora articulations, and he is backed in it by the position taken by India, observers said.
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A’luth punchi ku’lama, Kugnchukku’lam

[TamilNet, Friday, 03 December 2010, 01:29 GMT]
The new small tank
The small tank
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Vanni schools face closure due to torrential rain, negligence

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 30 November 2010, 09:03 GMT]
Education department sources have warned that schools in Vanni are facing closure due to continuous torrential rain. Majority of schools including in Ki'linochchi, Mullaiththeevu, Mannaar, and Vadamaraachchi East have been functioning in temporary shelters. Classrooms have been under water due to rain. Members of several families have also sought refuge in temporary shelters put up in schools as their houses are also under water. Hence education authorities have asked students not to come to schools which are located in rain affected areas.
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Colombo covers up bank robbery by Sinhala gang in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Monday, 29 November 2010, 10:44 GMT]
Sri Lankan police authorities are trying to cover up an attempted bank robbery by a three-member Sinhala robbers at Chaavakachcheari branch of the state-owned National Savings Bank Sunday morning. While Police in Chaavakachcheari said they had arrested one of the the robbers, a Sinhala man from South, based on surveilance camera monitoring and were searching for the other two robbers in his team, the police in Colombo at a press conference twisted the facts by saying that the arrested robber was from Ki'linochchi.
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Poet Kasi Anandan speaks to Palaka'ni

[TamilNet, Saturday, 27 November 2010, 05:03 GMT]
Mu'l'livaaykkaal is only a turning point in the Tamil Eelam struggle, says veteran national poet of Eezham Tamils Kasi Anandan to the audience of Palaka'ni, the TamilNet window for cross-views that features its inaugural programme on Saturday. “The Tigers have silenced their guns. To what extent the chauvinism of the Sinhala state could go, the international community has yet another opportunity to understand now. But, has it ever accepted that what is being committed is a genocide," he questioned. Any struggle that is based on righteous principles will win. Eelam Tamils should understand this and proceed, said the 72-year-old Batticaloa-born poet, who has been associated with Periyar E.V.Ramasamy Nayakkar, S.J.V Chelvanayakam and Velupillai Pirapaharan.
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SLA holds leader of protestors under house arrest in Karaichchi

[TamilNet, Thursday, 25 November 2010, 10:33 GMT]
More than ten Sri Lanka Army (SLA) soldiers arriving Thursday around 11:00 a.m at the house of the President of Oottuppulam Rural Development Society (RDS), who led the protest demonstration Wednesday demanding the cancellation of the sudden transfer of Karaichchi Divisional Secretary on the instructions of SLA authorities, continue to hold him under house arrest surrounding his house, sources in Ki’linochchi said. The president who is held under house arrest was to lead a hunger strike in front of Ki’linochchi Government Agent’s office Thursday along with nine other RDS presidents and a large number of civilians until the transfer order issued to the Divisional Secretary was cancelled.
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Public protest against SLA interference in civil administration in Ki’linochchi

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 24 November 2010, 11:44 GMT]
Welfare associations and public organizations in Karaichchi in Ki’linochchi district gathered in protest Wednesday morning in front of Ki’linochchi Government Agent’s office demanding immediate cancellation of the sudden transfer of Karaichchi Divisional Secretary, Ms. Sivakumar, issued on the request of local Sri Lanka Army (SLA) officials, sources in Ki’linochchi said. Ms. Sivakumar had not cooperated with the SLA officials in their efforts to evacuate the resettled families in lands in Karaichchi which the SLA authorities want to claim for SLA and Sinhala colonization, the sources said. She had been transferred within two hours of her refusal to comply with the evacuation plans of the SLA officials, the sources added.
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SLA active in grabbing strategic lands in North

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 23 November 2010, 14:54 GMT]
Sri Lanka Army (SLA) authorities in Ki’linochchi have threatened 18 Tamil families in Irathinapuram where they were each given 5 acres of land to live in 1994 by Sri Lanka government for which they have the documents proving ownership. SLA now claims that a Sinhala school had been located in the said area and therefore the land belongs to the government. SLA further says that it wants the land to be used as cattle grazing ground, the families said. Similarly, SLA officials in the Achchuveali camp have claimed areas in Puththoor and Vaatharavaththai in Valikaamam East saying that a Sinhala school called Panjaseeva and a Buddhist temple had been functioning in the said area. A military establishment and Sinhala colony at strategic Vaatharavaththai will check free movement of Tamils among the sectors of Valikaamam, Vadamaraadchi and Thenmaraadchi regions of the Jaffna peninsula.
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Ex-Liberation Tiger combatant student in Jaffna University attempts suicide

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 23 November 2010, 07:25 GMT]
A first year Arts Faculty student in Jaffna University, a released ex-Liberation Tiger combatant from Vanni, tried to commit suicide Monday by taking overdose of tablets, sources in Jaffna. Meanwhile, the parents of a former Liberation Tiger combatant who had been rehabilitated after arrest and later released to join his family complained 18 November to Jaffna Human Rights Commission (HRC) office that their son is continually threatened by Sri Lanka Army (SLA) Intelligence Unit officers and men when he appears to sign at the SLA Intelligence Unit camp as instructed. The 23-year-old student who attempted suicide is admitted to Jaffna Teaching Hospital where the Vice-chancellor of Jaffna University, Professor. N. Shanmuagalingan visited him.
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Tamil couple in motorbike killed in head-on collision with SLA vehicle

[TamilNet, Saturday, 20 November 2010, 10:47 GMT]
A husband and wife, residents of Chettly Street, Nallur in Jaffna district died in a road accident that took place Friday evening on their way in a motor bicycle to Murukandy Pillayar Temple located along A9 highway fulfill a vow in a head-on crash with a vehicle of the Sri Lanka Army. The couple was identified as Pounrajah Selvaraja, 52, and his wife Naguleswary, 48. The accident took place at Inthupuram in Murukandy area.
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Ramanathan Trust endows land to Upcountry Tamil tenets in Vanni

[TamilNet, Friday, 19 November 2010, 17:39 GMT]
In a significant move Friday, the president of Sir. P. Ramananthan Trust, former senior professor S.K. Sitrampalam, donated the lands of the Trust in Ki'linochchi to 60 families of Upcountry Tamils who were long-term tenets of those lands. The families uprooted in the recent war were unable to claim housing aid supposed to come through an Indian aid programme in the absence of ownership-documents of the lands, which they were inhabiting for a long time. The Ramanathan Trust was owning 330 acres of productive farmland in Ki'linochchi, which was settled by the Upcountry Tamils for several decades.
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Man posing as SLA Major arrested in Ki’linochchi for extortion

[TamilNet, Monday, 15 November 2010, 10:57 GMT]
Ki’linochchi police arrested Sunday a man posing as a Major in Sri Lanka Army (SLA) and three men led by him. He had taken 150,000 rupees from each parent of the LTTE cadres now held in the custody of the SLA, promising that he would get them released, police sources said. The gang led by the man posing as army major had claimed that they could get their children released when about 300 LTTE cadres would be brought to Ka'n'nakipuram Central College in Ki’linochchi Sunday morning, the police said.
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Highways 'development' projects with Chinese aid in North to be inaugurated

[TamilNet, Sunday, 14 November 2010, 09:42 GMT]
Sri Lankan government has announced that inauguration ceremonies are to be held Sunday and Monday in the North where foundation stones for various road development projects will be laid by a group of Sri Lanka ministers and deputy ministers including Basil Rajapaksa, Douglas Devananda and Namal Rajapaksa. Three Chinese firms have taken charge of the highway development projects and their engineers and technicians have already arrived in Jaffna and the work in the projects is to be done exclusively by Chinese work force, sources in Jaffna said.
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SLA occupation of school in Poonakari affects students

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 09 November 2010, 17:38 GMT]
More than a hundred students of Vigneswara Viththiyaalayam in Poonakari in Jaffna have to walk nearly ten km to attend schools as their school is occupied by Sri Lanka Army (SLA) which had converted the school as its base, Ki’linochchi Education officials said. The same situation prevails in Vanni too where many schools are occupied by SLA and the related authorities had done nothing to enable the schools to function, they added. Namal Rajapaksa, the son of Sri Lanka President Mahinda Rajapaksa and parliamentarian had been recently visiting schools in Vanni laying foundation stones and planting trees in the schools but nothing had followed his campaign to restore the schools to normalcy, parents in Vanni said.
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PTF insists NGOs in North to engage only in construction of houses

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 09 November 2010, 08:19 GMT]
The Secretary of the President’s Task Force (PTF) in Sri Lanka, S. P. Divaratne, in an urgent circular to the Government Agents in the North instructed them not to entertain any new proposals of projects submitted by the Non-government Organizations (NGOs) functioning in the North but to insist on them to concentrate on housing projects in the war affected Vanni instead, sources in Jaffna said. Amidst accusations that Sri Lanka government is reluctant to accept the Indian government’s offer to build 50,000 houses in Vanni the PTF insisting on NGOs to only engage in constructing houses in Vanni is seen as a ploy to deflect India’s presence in Vanni, NGO circles in Vanni said.
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4 suicides daily in Vanni: psycho-social consultant

[TamilNet, Sunday, 07 November 2010, 09:41 GMT]
An increase in suicides is reported in the one time war zones in the Northern Province and an average of four people attempt to commit suicide daily, according to the Sunday leader weekly in its November 07 edition quoting a psycho-social consultant from the Vanni, Dr. Thayalini Thiagarajah. “Many people in the North are still highly traumatized. People are suffering from post traumatic stress disorder, depression, acute stress disorder, and other mental diseases,” she said.
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NPC to be moved to Jaffna from Trincomalee

[TamilNet, Monday, 01 November 2010, 06:14 GMT]
Chief Secretary A. Sivasamy of Northern Provincial Council (NPC) located in Trincomalee has announced that the office of NPC is to be shifted to Jaffna from 1st of January 2011. NPC has placed advertisements calling for office space required for NPC in Jaffna. Earlier in July attempts made by NPC Governor Major Gen. G. A. Chandrasiri, former Sri Lanka Army (SLA) Commander of Jaffna, to move NPC to Ki’linochchi had been abandoned due to pressure from Sri Lanka government higher authorities.
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