May remembrance observed in Jaffna amid SLA intimidation

[TamilNet, Thursday, 20 May 2010, 08:12 GMT]
Despite hindrances and intimidation including death threats to the organizing clergy of the Tuesday memorial events for the people killed in the war on Vanni last year, Jaffna University Student Union (JUSU) and Tamil National Peoples Front (TNPF) observed the commemoration events Tuesday in a peaceful manner, sources in Jaffna said. Meanwhile, Jaffna Bishop Rt. Rev. Thomas Saundaranayagam, commenting on the behaviour of the Sri Lanka Army (SLA) officials, said that their activities have revealed their true face. It is alleged that SLA officers from Jaffna Fort had personally threatened the clergy with death who had organized memorial event in Trimer Hall which was cancelled due to the threats, the sources added.
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New political party in Tamil Nadu vows to fight for Tamil Eelam

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 19 May 2010, 18:18 GMT]
Around 75,000 Tamils, most of them of younger generation, attended the May Remembrance of Vanni massacre and the inauguration rally of Naam Thamilar political party at Virakanoor in the city of Madurai in the Tamil Nadu state of India, vowing to fight for the creation Tamil Eelam by politically capturing the power of the Tamil Nadu state as Tamils world over observed Genocidal War Crimes Day on Tuesday, remembering thousands who perished one year ago. “The Tamil Eelam struggle has been transcended into the hands of Tamil Nadu Tamils and the younger generation in particular,” S. Seeman, a Tamil activist and a popular film director told media. “War is politics with bloodshed, our way would be Politics without bloodshed,’ he told the gathering vowing to take forward the struggle for the freedom of Eezham Tamils and to voice for global Tamil freedom.
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Mass grave discovered in Naachchikkudaa, Mannaar

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 19 May 2010, 15:15 GMT]
De-mining workers of Danish De-mining Group (DDG) have discovered a mass grave in Naachchikkudaa area in Mannaar containing 75 to 100 skeletal remains while engaged in de-mining in the area, informed sources in Mannaar told TamilNet Wednesday. Sri Lanka Army (SLA) had not permitted resettlement in Naachchikkudaa earlier claiming that the area was infested with landmines and a great quantity of explosives lying buried at the height of the war had taken place in Naachchikkudaa. It is suspected that the skeletal remains discovered may have belonged to young men and women, the sources added.
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Colombo steps up Sinhalicisation in Trincomalee

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 19 May 2010, 15:00 GMT]
Colombo's district land authority has taken a move to allocate four hundred acres of state land with beach frontage, along the beach of north of Trincomalee district to Sinhalese businessmen of the south in the name of 'tourist development' despite the Tamil speaking villagers of Kuhchchave'li, I'rakka'ndi and Kumpu'ruppiddi in the Kuchchave'li DS division had already made representation to the civil authority to allocate these lands for their residential and occupational purposes.
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War Crimes Day observed in Norway, France, Canada, Italy

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 19 May 2010, 07:22 GMT]
Norwegian Council of Eelam Tamils (NCET) commemorated the first anniversary of Mu’l’livaaikkaal massacre Tuesday and declared 18 May as ‘War Crimes Day’, sources in Oslo said. Representatives of Norway political parties participated and spoke in the gathering where a memorandum was handed over to them by NCET. Meanwhile, similar events in France, Canada and Italy took place with the participation of Eezham Tamils and political leaders and people from the respective countries.
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SLA releases 495 Tamils detained in special detention centres in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 19 May 2010, 05:51 GMT]
Sri Lanka Army (SLA) released 495 Tamil detainees held in Thellippazhai Special Rehabilitation Centre and Kaithadi SLA detention centre in an event held in Jaffna Veerasingham Hall Tuesday. 270 students, 198 boys and girls of school going age, 72 Jaffna University students, 125 men and women claimed to have been former Liberation Tiger cadres were officially handed over to their parents at the event.
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SLA soldiers force Tamils to hoist Sri Lankan flag in Jaffna peninsula

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 19 May 2010, 05:47 GMT]
Sri Lanka Army (SLA) in Jaffna celebrating its victory in the war on the Tamils in Vanni forced residents in Jaffna peninsula to hoist the Sri Lankan flag in their houses and vehicles Tuesday, sources in Jaffna said. SLA had issued strict instructions to all private and government institutions to hoist the Lion flag Tuesday as a mark of celebrating the SLA victory. Meanwhile, Sri Lankan soldiers had blocked all events that were arranged to commemorate the Tamils killed by SLA in the war on Vanni.
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Senior SLA officer: ‘Kill everybody!’ order came from the top

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 18 May 2010, 19:33 GMT]
A senior Sri Lankan Army commander and frontline soldier have told Britain’s Channel 4 News that point-blank executions of Tamils at the end of the civil war in May 2009 were carried out under orders ‘from the top’. In an extended segment on Sri Lanka Tuesday, Channel 4 broadcast translated video interviews with the two soldiers. Surrendering LTTE fighters and their families were detained, tortured and shot, the trooper said. Channel 4 also interviewed in the studio the former Chief Prosecutor for the International Criminal Tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and for Rwanda, Louis Arbour, who slammed the impunity enjoyed by Sri Lankan forces throughout the armed conflict. Sri Lanka’s ambassador to the United Nations, Palitha Kohana, failed to show up, despite agreeing beforehand to appear to defend his government’s record.
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Accounting for 2009 will define Sri Lanka’s future - editorial

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 18 May 2010, 11:10 GMT]
“2009’s single, protracted program of state-conducted slaughter in Sri Lanka has a sixty year-long antecedent, beginning well before the armed conflict erupted in 1983 … Since independence from Britain the Tamils have been a clear target for state-sanctioned and, later, state-conducted violence on a massive scale. … In that sense, the Tamils today embody the raison d’etre of the ‘responsibility to protect,” the Tamil Guardian newspaper argued in its latest editorial.
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Tamil lawyers decline to appear for EPDP key operatives in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 18 May 2010, 10:18 GMT]
A Sinhalese lawyer from South had to appear Monday in Jaffna magistrate court on behalf of the two Eelam People’s Democratic Party (EPDP) key operatives charged with issuing death threats to Chaavakachcheari magistrate as all lawyers in Jaffna peninsula refused to appear for the suspects.
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Colombo, SLA 'poking spear into an unhealed wound' : JUSU

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 18 May 2010, 10:17 GMT]
Sri Lanka government and its army celebrating their Vanni war victory in the the North and East while the Tamils continue to suffer bearing the wounds inflicted by Sri Lanka Army (SLA) in Vanni is like ‘poking spear into an unhealed wound’, Jaffna University Students Union (JUSU) said in a media message titled Monday in Jaffna. Meanwhile, SLA key officials took part in several ‘Victory Celebrations’ held in Vanni mainland while people travelling along A9 road were kept waiting on sides for nearly four hours Monday while SLA conducted its celebration event in Ki’linochchi, sources in Jaffna said.
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Valikaamam HSZ resettlement issue remains unresolved

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 18 May 2010, 09:46 GMT]
The issue of resettling families uprooted from their properties by Sri Lanka Army (SLA) for the establishment of High Security Zone (HSZ) discussed in a meeting in Thellippazhai Divisional Secretariat Monday was not resolved due to the non-cooperation of the Tamil political leaders, the representatives of the Welfare Organizations for Uprooted Persons (WOUP) who arranged the meeting said. WOUP had requested all the parliamentarians of Jaffna district to raise their voices together to solve the issue, its representatives said.
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TGTE inaugurated in transnational way, Ramsey Clark stresses importance of history

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 18 May 2010, 01:49 GMT]
87 of 115 representatives of the Transnational Government of Tamil Eelam (TGTE) already declared elected from 11 countries are meeting in three spots of the world, in the US city of Philadelphia, in London and in Geneva, in a 3 day inaugural session from 17 to 19 May. The Tamil Eelam flag was hoisted and a representative from each country addressed the public stating that the goal of the TGTE should be the formation of independent and sovereign state of Tamil Eelam in the North and East of the island of Sri Lanka. William Ramsey Clark, a former US Attorney General, was one of the keynote speakers of the inaugural event. He characterized the move to form the transnational government a "brave initiative to find the wisdom and the courage to achieve - as it was for many centuries - a free and independent Tamil Eelam."
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SLA blocks May remembrance events in Jaffna, journalists threatened

[TamilNet, Monday, 17 May 2010, 22:16 GMT]
Sri Lanka Army (SLA) has prevented the first commemoration events of Mu’l’livaaikkaal Massacre of May 2009 being observed in Jaffna Sunday in Nalloor and Jaffna town by chasing away the public from participating, threatening to death the reporters trying to cover the event and detaining Yarl Thinakural reporter who was present in the memorial event observed in Ilangkai Thamizh Arasu Kaddchi (ITAK) office on Martin Road, Jaffna.
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Tamil Nadu Police denies permission to Muthukumaran statue

[TamilNet, Monday, 17 May 2010, 13:43 GMT]
Tanjavoor police in Tamil Nadu Sunday denied permission to erect the statue of Muthukumaran of Kolaththoor in Tamil Nadu who had set himself ablaze demanding to stop the war waged on Eezham Tamils by Sri Lanka Army. ‘I’lanthth Thamizhar Iyakkam’ (Young Tamils Movement) had decided to erect the statue of Muthukumaran near Tanjavoor in Tamil Nadu and to hold a public meeting named ‘Mu’l’livaaikkaal Veerava’nakkam (Mu’l’livaaikkaal Homage of Valor) Sunday. Tamil Nadu Police banned the meeting and the Torch Marathon that was to be held before the meeting and the opening of the statue event, sources from Tamil Nadu said.
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Sri Lanka responsible for mass killings - ICG

[TamilNet, Monday, 17 May 2010, 01:24 GMT]
The report by International Crisis Group, a Europe based NGO, said that despite its [Colombo’s] promises to protect civilians and aid workers as it made its assault on the Tigers, the Sri Lankan government had bombed relentlessly in areas where it knew unarmed people were present, according to the Monday edition of New York Times. “Evidence gathered by Crisis Group provides reasonable grounds to believe that during these months [the security forces intentionally and repeatedly shelled civilians, hospitals and humanitarian operations,” the paper said quoting from the text of the ICG report, and added that “[i]t [the report] also provides reason to believe that senior government and military officials were aware of the massive civilian casualties due to the security forces’ attacks, but failed to protect the civilian population as they were obliged to under the laws of war.”
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SLA soldiers deployed again in road checks, patrol in Jaffna peninsula

[TamilNet, Sunday, 16 May 2010, 19:11 GMT]
Thousands of Sri Lanka Army (SLA) soldiers are deployed along with the police in carrying out checks and patrol of the main roads in Jaffna peninsula again, sources in Jaffna said. Jaffna SLA Commander Mahinda Kathrusinghe informed that SLA forces are being deployed to help the police in Jaffna peninsula to contain the escalating abductions for ransom, killings, robberies and sexual violence on women, deteriorating law and order in the peninsula, in a meeting with the Jaffna district lawyers and magistrates Saturday.
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SLA tears down Tamil Heroes memorial monuments in VVT

[TamilNet, Sunday, 16 May 2010, 15:28 GMT]
More than a hundred Sri Lanka Army (SLA) soldiers deployed Sunday evening in Theeruvil in Valveddiththu’rai, the birth place of Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) leader V. Pirapaharan in Vadamaraadchi, are tearing down the memorial monuments erected in memory of twelve combatants including senior Commanders Kumarappa, Pulenthiran and another memorial monument of Col. Kiddu, sources in Valveddiththur’ai (VVT) said. Meanwhile, former TNA parliamentarian Sivajilingam told that he too had received complaints about the demolishing of LTTE memorial monuments.
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SLA converts Tiger Heroes Resting Homes into bases in Vanni, Jaffna

[TamilNet, Sunday, 16 May 2010, 14:25 GMT]
Sri Lanka Army (SLA) authorities are hastily converting the Heroes Resting Homes where Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) war heroes are buried in Vanni main land and Jaffna peninsula, to obliterate all traces of them and to prevent their dear and near ones visiting the tombs in fond memory, sources in Jaffna said. Another reason for the demolishing of the Heroes Resting Homes (HRH) is to prevent people from South seeing them when visiting North, the sources added.
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“I don’t know why Kalaignar Aiya sent me back”: Parvathi Amma

[TamilNet, Sunday, 16 May 2010, 14:02 GMT]
“I do not know why Kalaignar Aiya [Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi] sent me back,” Parvathi Amma, mother of Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) leader Velupillai Pirapaharan, admitted to Valveddiththu’rai (VVT) hospital told TamilNet Sunday. Being very frail after going through the ordeal of being sent back to Malaysia from Chennai and coming to Sri Lanka from Malaysia in her old age and paralyzed condition, she ended the conversation saying, “I went there only to get medical treatment.” Meanwhile, many Sinhalese journalists come to Jaffna to see her at the hospital and some of them touching her feet with reverence on leaving, moves the hearts of those around, hospital sources said.
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