War affected women in North exploited by SL ministry agents

[TamilNet, Sunday, 31 October 2010, 06:04 GMT]
Sri Lanka government ministries affected by the slump in garment exports due to the loss of GSP Plus face an acute shortage of workers in the garment industries in the South. The workers, mostly women, have left due to drastic pay cuts. The ministries now attempt to lure war affected young women in the North to work in the garment factories in the South at much lower salary. In this context, two groups of young women from Thellippazhai and Uduvil Divisional Secretariat areas in Jaffna have been taken to Colombo Thursday by the agents of some ministries, sources in Jaffna said. Meanwhile, an attempt to entice some war affected young women in Ki’linochchi in Vanni with employment by a company in Kandy with the intention of misusing them had been stopped with the timely intervention of local social activists.
Full story >>

NP Governor retracts sudden transfer of Ki’linochchi Director of Education

[TamilNet, Friday, 29 October 2010, 05:59 GMT]
The education officials and principals of schools in Ki’linochchi district abstained from duties Wednesday in protest against the sudden transfer order to K. Kurukularajah, Zonal Director of Education in Ki’linochchi, by Northern Province Governor, Major. Gen. G. A. Chandarasiri. The governor, however, said that the transfer order has been immediately cancelled in a meeting he convened in Vavuniyaa Thursday, sources in Vavuniyaa said. The governor had also claimed that he had nothing to do with the sudden transfer order to K. Kurukularaja. Meanwhile, the protestors in Ki’linochchi said that Chandrasiri acts more like a military commander in performing his duties than as the governor of Northern Province. He had been the Sri Lanka Army (SLA) Commander of Jaffna before being appointed as governor. Tamil National Alliance (TNA) too had joined in the Wednesday protest.
Full story >>

Resettled families in North suffer without basic medical facilities

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 26 October 2010, 06:00 GMT]
The female patients of the families allowed to resettle in Ki’linochchi district are forced to travel a long distance to Jaffna or Vavuniyaa as there is no female medical specialist in Ki’linochchi government hospital, hospital sources said. Meanwhile, there is no hospital at all in Vadamaraadchi East where more than six thousand uprooted people had been allowed to resettle and the people have to come to Jaffna Teaching Hospital for treatment of all kinds of illness travelling a long distance, sources in Jaffna said. Sri Lanka government which says that it is gradually improving medical services in the North has failed to provide even the basic medical facilities to the resettled people in Vanni and Vadmaraadchi East, the sources further said.
Full story >>

Only 20% of vehicles abandoned during war can be returned to owners

[TamilNet, Monday, 25 October 2010, 05:36 GMT]
Some of the vehicles abandoned by their owners during the war on Vanni are found fit enough to be handed over to the owners, Ki’linochchi Government Agent (GA) said. A team of motor vehicle inspection has identified 2050 motor cycles and 250 vehicles of other types as fit to return, the GA said. The owners have to produce a copy of the complaint made to local police and the documents of ownership to claim their vehicles.
Full story >>

3 civilians injured in explosion in Ki’linochchi

[TamilNet, Thursday, 21 October 2010, 05:24 GMT]
A landmine hidden under a destroyed building in Paarathipuram in Ki’lincochi exploded Monday around 5:00 p.m injuring three civilians who were removing the remnants of the building, the office in charge of de-mining, in Jaffna Secretariat said. One of the injured was transferred to Jaffna Teaching Hospital for further treatment from Ki’linochchi government hospital where the injured had been admitted.
Full story >>

Mahinda Rajapaksa shuns North TNA parliamentarians

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 19 October 2010, 05:19 GMT]
Sri Lanka President Mahinda Rajapaksa has failed to invited the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) parliamentarians of the North to a meeting related to ‘Development of North’ in Vavuniyaa Sri Lanka Army (SLA) Joseph Camp Tuesday, deliberately keeping away the elected representatives of the people from participating in the meeting, TNA parliamentarians of North accused. The participation of the elected representatives is crucial as issues of Sinhala colonization in the North, refusal to resettlement of uprooted Tamils in their own properties and similar matters are to be explored in Tuesday meeting, they said. Purposely shunning the democratically elected representatives from participating in decision making meetings by Sri Lanka government reveals how very much it discriminates the Tamils, TNA MPs said.
Full story >>

North ‘Development’ meeting to be held in Vavuniyaa SLA Headquarters

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 13 October 2010, 07:42 GMT]
Sri Lanka’s President Mahinda Rajapaksa is to preside over the Northern Provincial Development Committee meeting on October 19 in Vavuniyaa. The venue of the meeting is the regional headquarters of the Sri Lanka Army (SLA) located in Vavuniyaa. Similar development committee meeting for the Eastern Province was held in the Naval Headquarters located inside Trincomalee Naval Dockyard recently.
Full story >>

Northern ‘Development’ Meeting to be held in Vavuniyaa

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 12 October 2010, 05:40 GMT]
Sri Lanka President Mahinda Rajapaksa is to hold the ‘Development’ Meeting of North in Vavuniyaa 19 October and a meeting to discuss arrangement for the Vavuniyaa meeting was held Monday in Jaffna Secretariat by Northern Province Governor, Major Gen. G. A. Chandrasiri and Sri Lanka Minister, Douglas Devananda. The Government Agents of the districts of Jaffna, Ki’linochchi, Mullaiththeevu, Vavuniyaa and Mannaar participated in the meeting.
Full story >>

Resettled families in Vanni suffer without adequate transport

[TamilNet, Saturday, 09 October 2010, 05:35 GMT]
The resettled families in Vanni are facing great difficulty without adequate transport facilities as Sri Lanka government had not done anything to meet the transport facility needs of the people resettled in villages in Vanni located far apart, sources in Vanni said. The government run Sri Lanka Transport Board (SLTB) had abandoned its depots in Vanni for the last twenty years and the limited number of buses allocated to Vanni after the war is hardly enough to serve the residents of Vanni, Ki’linochchi SLTB officials said.
Full story >>

SLA stops volunteer teachers’ demonstration in Ki’linochchi

[TamilNet, Thursday, 07 October 2010, 07:36 GMT]
Sri Lanka Army (SLA) soldiers in Ki’linochchi did not allow more than 300 volunteer teachers of Vanni to stage their token protest demonstration in front of Ki’linochchi Education office Wednesday demanding Sri Lanka government to appoint them permanently in their posts. The volunteer teachers have been serving the schools in the districts of Ki’linochchi and Mullaiththeevu without salary for the last ten years and even during the war on Vanni, sources in Ki’linochchi said. SLA said that no demonstration will be allowed in public places. The demonstrators who then went into the Education Office held a brief meeting before handing their appeal to the Education officials.
Full story >>

Ki’linochchi volunteer teachers demand permanent appointment

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 06 October 2010, 07:27 GMT]
More than 300 volunteer teachers serving in Ki’linochchi district without payment for the last ten years in war-ravaged Vanni are to launch a token protest demonstration in front of Ki’linochchi Education Office Wednesday demanding permanent appointments, sources in Ki’linochchi said. Sri Lanka government which has made permanent the volunteer teachers in other districts had ignored the volunteer teachers in Vanni saying it was under the control of Liberation Tigers, the sources added. This token protest is to be staged in the context of Sri Lanka government claiming to have rehabilitated Vanni.
Full story >>

SL government neglects war-ravaged Vanni

[TamilNet, Thursday, 30 September 2010, 06:05 GMT]
Sri Lanka government has not allocated sufficient funds for the renovation and rebuilding of schools and other government department offices which had been either badly damaged or totally destroyed during its war on Vanni, officials of Northern Province Education Ministry and Ki’linochchi Government Secretariat said. Basic facilities are not made available for the government employees and teachers from other areas who have returned to work in Vanni mainland and they attempt to get transferred out of Vanni. Our time is spent mainly in receiving the numerous SL government ministers and their officials claiming to rehabilitate Vanni but it will take more than a year to restore working standards, an official in one of the District Secretariats, said. SL government stops with its publicity of developing Vanni without allocating the required funds for development, he added.
Full story >>

SLA erects Buddhist temples in Vanni

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 28 September 2010, 05:01 GMT]
Sri Lanka Army (SLA) authorities in Vanni are actively engaged in erecting Buddhist temples in the surroundings of Saiva temples in Vanni, sources in Ki’linochchi said. The construction of a Buddhist temple in the precincts of Mu'rika’ndi Pi’l’laiyaar temple located on Kandy road by SLA has been suspended by the Local Government Body of the area. A case filed by a private person in Colombo High Court claiming that Mu'rika’ndi Pi’l’laiyaar temple belongs to him is being taken up for inquiry, the sources said.
Full story >>

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.
Full story >>

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.
Full story >>

Sri Lanka’s LLRC, a hoax – Vanni war victims

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 21 September 2010, 05:36 GMT]
Only fifteen of nearly four hundred persons, most of them women, were allowed to witness before Sri Lanka’s Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC) in Mullaiththeevu Government Secretariat Monday while the others were driven away, sources in Mullaiththeevu said. The women had come with the hope of getting information about their husbands, sons and daughters who had disappeared without trace after surrendering themselves to Sri Lanka Army (SLA) in the final days of the war on Vanni. Denied of the opportunity to witness before the Commission and from futile attempts in the past they said they had no faith in the Commission calling it a hoax staged by Sri Lanka President Mahinda Rajapaksa to deceive them and the world.
Full story >>

‘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.”
Full story >>

Colombo bans BBC from covering LLRC hearings

[TamilNet, Saturday, 18 September 2010, 15:20 GMT]
While the forthcoming hearings by Sri Lanka's Lesson and Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC) at the former LTTE stronghold Ki'linochchi and Mullaiththeevu are to be held in public, BBC has been "blocked from covering the public hearing," BBC said Friday. "A senior defence ministry official said he could not allow the BBC to attend the sittings, due to start on Saturday....The military liaison officer declined to give any reasons," BBC said in its report.
Full story >>

LLRC member Prof. Jiffry passes away

[TamilNet, Friday, 17 September 2010, 14:49 GMT]
Professor M. T. M. Jiffry, one of the eight member- Lesson and Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC) passed away Friday morning after a brief illness in Colombo. His burial took place Friday evening at Dehiwala Jummah Mosque. Born in Matara, Jiffry was the Professor of the Medical Faculty in Sri Jayewardenepura University.
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 >>