Fonseka, Gotabhaya entangle in US legal net

[TamilNet, Monday, 02 November 2009, 00:54 GMT]
United States appears to be slowly moving to corral Major General Sarath Fonseka, an aspiring US citizen, and Gotabhaya Rajapakse, a US citizen with property and family living in the U.S., into the US Justice system to investigate the two Sri Lanka officials for criminal culpability for allegedly issuing commands to the Sri Lanka Army (SLA) to fire heavy weapons towards the SLA demarcated No Fire Zone (NFZ) in the final stages of war killing more than 20,000 Tamil civilians. Colombo dailies report that Gen. Fonseka, currently on a private visit to the US, has been asked by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to have a "voluntary meeting" to discuss matters related to the recently released war-crimes report, and if he would be willing to testify against Sri Lanka's Defence Secretary.
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Sinhala encroachers deny Tamil owners land

[TamilNet, Sunday, 01 November 2009, 16:59 GMT]
"More than 1,486 Tamil families are unable to peacefully resettle in their homes in Trincomalee, Vavuniya and Batticaloa due to unlawful and widespread occupation of state land by members of the majority community," Sri Lanka's weekly, The Nation said, according information from Tamil National Alliance leader, Rajavarothiam Sampanthan and member of parliament, Packiyaselvam Ariyanethiran.
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Protest against video-captured killing of Tamil youth

[TamilNet, Sunday, 01 November 2009, 14:55 GMT]
The Democratic Peoples Front (DPF) led by Colombo district parliamentarian, Mano Ganeshan, is to hold a demonstration in front of the Fort Railway Station on November 4 at 12:00 noon condemning the assault and killing of a mentally ill Tamil youth by police and Sri Lanka Army soldiers in the sea of Bambalapitya on Thursday.
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Abysmal 90% fail rate of internee Tamil children in Year-5 exam

[TamilNet, Sunday, 01 November 2009, 12:43 GMT]
Sri Lanka's Tamil cultural destruction continues at unabated speed with the latest results of the year-5 exams released by the Department of Examinations, after a 30-day unexplained delay, revealed that only 507 students out of 5413 children who sat the Year 5 examination-2009 from the internment camps located in Vavuniyaa have passed. The Department released the results of Year 5 examination for other provinces on October 2.
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US legal noose tightening around Fonseka

[TamilNet, Saturday, 31 October 2009, 22:02 GMT]
The audacious visit to the United States by Major General Sarath Fonseka soon after an incriminating US State Department report over war crimes, appears to have landed the Major in a legal bind with US Department of Homeland Security (DHS), according to a report in the Sunday Times. While the DHS has requested a "voluntary meeting," Fonseka's legal counsels are yet to determine if US has the authority to trump Fonseka's assumed diplomatic immunity and can force him to testify, or if Fonseka's immunity would grant him the option to refuse to testify and return to Sri Lanka.
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Chomsky: West's self-interest reduces R2P to "noble rhetoric"

[TamilNet, Saturday, 31 October 2009, 20:13 GMT]
During an invited lecture at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) of London University, Noam Chomsky, one of the world's well known intellectual and professor emeritus of linguistics at MIT, said on Sri Lanka, that although there's "a lot of noble rhetoric about Responsibility to Protect (R2P), there is no particular Western advantage in protecting people who are being slaughtered, and are being thrown into concentration camps. Somehow these didn't make it in the noble rhetoric," and added Sri Lanka was a "horror story, especially towards the end."
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Absurd logic of seeking ‘moderates’ amid a genocide - paper

[TamilNet, Saturday, 31 October 2009, 15:20 GMT]
While many international actors are coming to realise that the problem in Sri Lanka is in fact rooted in the character of the Sinhala-dominated state, the London-based policy nexus which theorised, argued for, and solicited international consensus around Colombo’s military slaughter is still insisting that their strategy was essentially right, the Tamil Guardian newspaper said this week. “These handmaidens of Sri Lanka’s bloodbath will be proven disastrously wrong again. But not before the Tamils endure much more suffering and further bloodletting.”
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Spectator video captures SL Police, SLA kill mentally ill Tamil youth

[TamilNet, Saturday, 31 October 2009, 12:37 GMT]
Sri Lanka Police and Sri Lanka Army soldiers beat a mentally ill Tamil youth and forced the youth to drown near the sea near Bambalapitya, Colombo, railway station Thursday. The youth was identified as Balavarnam Sivakumar, 26, of Ratmalana, according to media reports in Colombo, which belatedly listed the youth's identity. "The entire country [Sri Lanka] watched in horror, as a group of heavily built men attacked the mentally unstable [Tamil] youth with wooden poles while he pleaded for mercy, when it was telecast on several news bulletins on Thursday night," Daily Mirror said.
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IDPs brought to Jaffna from Vavuniyaa camps

[TamilNet, Saturday, 31 October 2009, 06:26 GMT]
The number of Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) from the Sri Lanka Army (SLA) internment camps in Vavuniyaa brought to Jaffna since 5 August, claiming that they will be resettled, has exceeded 41,000, sources in Jaffna said. The IDPs from Vanni district among the people brought have to stay in camps if they do not have any relatives to take charge of them, the sources added.
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British MPs call for suspension of GSP+, Sri Lanka's removal from Commonwealth

[TamilNet, Friday, 30 October 2009, 05:30 GMT]
Several British Members of Parliament participated in a debate on Sri Lanka's internment camps, Wednesday 28 October for nearly 3 hours starting from 2:30 p.m. Many MPs cited the inhumane conditions under which more than 250,000 Tamil civilians are being kept in military supervised internment camps in Sri Lanka and called for the termination of GSP+ trade benefits and suspension of Sri Lanka from British Commonwealth. Joan Ryan, the Labour MP for Enfield North and a vice chair of the Labor party, initiated the debate. Full video is attached below.
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Cambridge Amnesty calls for release of 250,000 Tamils

[TamilNet, Friday, 30 October 2009, 03:13 GMT]
Local Amnesty International (AI) members, at a demonstration in Cambridge Market Square on October 26th, called for the UK government to increase international pressure on Sri Lanka to release the more than 250,000 Tamil detainees from the refugee-turned-detention camps. Richard Howitt, MEP for the East of England, also spoke in support of the Campaign and local MP David Howarth came along to sign the petition, web media in Cambridge reported.
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Amnesty, CPJ, RSF call for probe into Channel-4 video death threats

[TamilNet, Thursday, 29 October 2009, 11:28 GMT]
New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), Amnesty International, and Paris-based Reporters Without Borders (RSF), three premier watchdogs on media freedom, independently called Sri Lanka to investigate into the death threats received by two senior editors of Sri Lanka's Sunday Leader for the editors' coverage of the Channel-4 broadcast video which showed armed Sri Lankan soldiers allegedly executing Tamil prisoners stripped naked and hands tied behind their backs. “The air of impunity surrounding violence against the media is having a chilling effect on journalists,” said Bob Dietz, CPJ’s Asia program coordinator.
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TNA members boycott initial ceremonies of first JMC session

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 28 October 2009, 17:48 GMT]
Tamil National Alliance (TNA) members of Jaffna Municipal Council (JMC) who kept away from the initial ceremonies which preceded the inauguration of the first session of JMC Wednesday said that the vain ceremonies held by the ruling United People’s Front Alliance (UPFA) and allied political parties as propaganda is deplorable while the Vanni IDPs are suffering in the internment camps. “We will not allow exploitation of JMC and its activities for propaganda purposes of political parties, the leader of TNA opposition in JMC, Mudiyappu Remedias said.
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Why are children kept in concentration camps, asks Prof. Peter Schalk

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 28 October 2009, 14:24 GMT]
Stating that a list of details of children ranging from 1 month to 18 years, within the internment camps in Vavuniyaa, was being composed by concerned western academics and rights activists, Prof. Peter Schalk, of Uppsala University, Sweden, on Tuesday said out of 1,200 names they have composed 1,082 were orphans. The information is documented by human rights’ organisations in the field in August/September 2009. "The list gives unfortunately only a part of the total number of children in all concentration camps," he said adding that the list could be ordered from him. "The list makes it possible to follow up the fate of each child over time and makes denials by the Government of killings through neglect of children impossible," he said in a note sent to TamilNet.
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Tamil civilian arrested in Mannaar

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 28 October 2009, 11:24 GMT]
Police intelligence unit located in Mannaar Tuesday night arrested a Tamil person in Ezhuthoor in Mannaar district on receipt of information that he had been a member of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eezham (LTTE) intelligence division, Police Spokesman Nimal Mediwake told media Wednesday.
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Tamil protection movement launches Four Directions March in Tamil Nadu

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 27 October 2009, 13:13 GMT]
Ilangkai Thamizhar Paathukaappu Iyakkam (ITPI) led by Pazha. Nedumaaran and consisting of PMK leader Dr. Ramadoss, MDMK leader Vaiko, CPI leaders in Tamil Nadu, R. Nallakannu and C. Mahendran are engaged in launching awareness marches from the four corners of Tamil Nadu highlighting the plight of Eelam Tamils and demanding the immediate release of more than 250,000 Tamils detained in the Sri Lanka Army (SLA) internment camps in the north of Sri Lanka.
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Sri Lanka editors receive death threats for Channel-4 video comments

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 27 October 2009, 03:26 GMT]
Sunday Leader, a weekend broadsheet in Sri Lanka, said in the latest edition that two of the paper's editors, Frederica Jansz, and Munza Mushtaq, received Thursday "hand written death threats by post." The threats relate to Sunday Leader news stories on the authenticity of the August Channel-4 video which showed armed Sri Lankan soldiers executing Tamil prisoners stripped naked and hands tied behind their backs. "This newspaper has consistently in the entire 15 years of its existence come under attack. We have been burnt, bombed, sealed, harassed and threatened, culminating in January this year with the brutal killing of Lasantha Wickrematunge," the paper said.
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Rights group opposes GSP+ benefits to Sri Lanka

[TamilNet, Monday, 26 October 2009, 12:12 GMT]
Edward Mortimer, chair of the Advisory Council for Sri Lanka Peace and Justice Campaign, a rights group, in a letter to Financial Times responding to an earlier article on GSP+ says: "[G]overnment has until now held more than 250,000 civilians in insanitary internment camps, currently threatened with monsoon flooding, while an unknown number of alleged combatants are held elsewhere, out of sight of the media, Red Cross and other humanitarian agencies. Wartime promises that Tamil grievances would be peacefully redressed once hostilities were ended have not been fulfilled. Instead an atmosphere of racist triumphalism has been encouraged."
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5 Tamils including two women arrested in East, West

[TamilNet, Monday, 26 October 2009, 11:00 GMT]
Sri Lanka Police arrested five Tamils including two women in three separate incidents Friday, Saturday and Sunday in the East and West of the country. Two persons including a third year undergraduate of South Eastern University were taken into custody on Friday in Kalmunai in the East. T. Vinorathan of Thambiluvil was taken into custody along with a woman suspected to be a cadre of LTTE, identified as Inthirarasa Pavarita, 26, at Aalayadiveampu in Ampaa’rai district. Undergrad, Vinorathan was assisting the LTTE woman cadre, police spokesman SSP Nimal Mediwake said.
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Sri Lankan Flag to be hoisted in Jaffna Fort

[TamilNet, Sunday, 25 October 2009, 04:42 GMT]
Son of Sri Lankan President Rajapaksa, Namal Rajapakse, who is presently staying in Jaffna along with the 250 youths he brought from the South will be officially hoisting the Sri Lanka Lion Flag Sunday in Jaffna Fort, sources in Jaffna said. In 1996 when Sri Lanka Army (SLA) occupied Jaffna, the then Deputy Defence Minister, Anurathe Rathwathe had ceremoniously hoisted the Sri Lankan Flag in the esplanade in front of Jaffna Fort. Tamils protested vehemently when Sinhala parties adopted the lion flag as the national flag soon after British left the island. Opposition to the flag, since then, has been part of the Tamil national movement.
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