President Rajapakse will give nothing to Tamils – Gajendrakumar Ponnambalam

[TamilNet, Sunday, 02 August 2009, 06:49 GMT]
“Tamils should be vigilant of Sri Lanka's President Mahinda Rajapakse’s intentions. He says that there is no minority race in the country but only a majority race. It is clear that his intention is to assimilate the Tamil race into the Majority Sinhala race in Sri Lanka,” Gajendrakumar Ponnambalam, Tamil National Alliance (TNA) Jaffna district parliamentarian, told TamilNet Saturday in an interview in Jaffna.
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Irish Trade Unions call for Sri Lanka war crimes investigations

[TamilNet, Sunday, 02 August 2009, 02:23 GMT]
Noting that more than quarter of a million Tamils were crammed in to an area the size of New York Central park that was repeatedly bombarded for 4 months when "the UN estimates that up to 8000 people were killed," and "other sources claim that more than 20,000 people were killed," and "[t]here are several reports about serious war crimes committed by the Sri Lankan Army," David Begg, General Secretary of Irish Congress of Trade Unions with a total membership of 850,000 workers, in a letter to Ireland's Minister of Foreign Affairs, Micheal Martin, said he agrees with "Amnesty International's call for an independent inquiry into war crimes," and added that "[t]he Irish Congress of Trade Unions hopes that the Irish government will take initiatives on the international level, and within the European Union, for such an independent inquiry."
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“Colombo no longer has any excuse for its brutal policies” - National Post

[TamilNet, Saturday, 01 August 2009, 20:48 GMT]
In light of the 'military victory' over the LTTE, Sri Lanka must now be judged by the human-rights standards that typically govern developing countries. And by those standards, the country's recent conduct should be of great concern” said an editorial in the National Post on Friday, citing the detainment of 280,000 Tamil civilians in government camp as indicating Tamils “are destined to remain second class citizens”. Questioning the global silence over the deaths of thousands of civilians in the final stages of the war and the praise given to the Sri Lankan Government by the U.N Human Rights Council, the article observed a continued double standard by the international community, where “apparently, some humans' human rights count for more than others”.
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Poonthoaddam residents complain of stench from cemetary

[TamilNet, Saturday, 01 August 2009, 19:13 GMT]
Foul smell from Vavuniyaa-Poonthooddam general cemetery due to improper mass burial of dead from Sri Lanka miltary supervised Vanni internment camps which hold more than 300,000 Tamil civilians is posing health hazard to the village residents, civil society sources in Vavuniyaa said. Corpses are buried en masse in graves, and routinely, bodies of recently dead are placed over partly decomposed bodies buried earlier.
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Ruling party supporters confiscate voting cards in Jaffna – TNA

[TamilNet, Saturday, 01 August 2009, 17:11 GMT]
Tamil National Alliance (TNA) Jaffna district parliamentarian Suresh Premachandran alleged that the ruling party contestants in Jaffna Municipal Council (JMC) election had forcibly confiscated more than 1500 voting cards from residents in Kozhumpuththu’rai, Ariyaalai and Eachchamoaddai area in Jaffna, in a press meet held in his Jaffna office Saturday. TNA parliamentarians Gejendrakumar Ponnambalam and Solomon Cyril along with Thamizharsuk Kadchi (TK) chief candidate Mudiyappu Remedias attended the press meet.
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Commencement of bus service via A9 route from Jaffna doubtful

[TamilNet, Saturday, 01 August 2009, 08:45 GMT]
Government announced that transport service for public between Jaffna and Colombo will commence from 1 August but the officials of Sri Lanka Transport Board (SLTB) in Jaffna who have to provide the buses said that they had not received any instructions from their superiors in Colombo. The five buses which took 210 passengers from Jaffna on 22 July in an event inaugurated by Basil Rajapakse, the brother and advisor of President Mahinda Rajapakse are being held back in Jaffna by Sri Lanka Army (SLA), they further said.
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Hundreds of Tamils interrogated in Colombo

[TamilNet, Saturday, 01 August 2009, 08:19 GMT]
Sri Lanka police and Sri Lanka Army (SLA) launched Friday an intensive search mostly in Fort and Bambalapitiya stopping passenger buses and other vehicles and interrogated hundreds of Tamils, sources in Colombo said. Though the search was conducted for more than three hours no official information of anyone arrested is available, they said.
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No persons can carry arms in Batticaloa from August 1- DIG

[TamilNet, Saturday, 01 August 2009, 07:58 GMT]
No one would be allowed to carry arms in Batticaloa district except police personnel and members of the State armed forces, said the Eastern Region Deputy Inspector General of Police (DIG), Mr. Edison Gunatilake, said. He made this announcement at a meeting held Thursday evening at Thevanayagam Hall in Batticaloa. Members of paramilitary groups, Eelam Peoples Democratic Party (EPDP), Peoples Liberation Organization of Tamil Eelam (PLOTE), Eelam Peoples Revolutionary Liberation Front (EPRLF-Padmanaba wing) and the Tamil Makkal Viduthalai Puligal (TMVP) and senior police and Special Task Force (STF) personnel attended the meeting along with businessmen and entrepreneurs of the district.
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Kandy / Senkadagala / Mahanuwara

[TamilNet, Saturday, 01 August 2009, 07:43 GMT]
The enclosure / The red hill of difficult side / The great city
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Tamil youth arrested in Katunayake airport

[TamilNet, Saturday, 01 August 2009, 03:14 GMT]
A 22 year-old Tamil youth was arrested by the National Intelligence Bureau (NIB) of the Sri Lanka Police on his arrival from South Africa at the Katunayake International Airport (KIA) on Wednesday. Currently he is being detained in the Fourth Floor of the Criminal Investigation Department for further inquiry, relatives in their complaints to human rights organizations said.
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Tamil political prisoners’ fast continues for the 4th day

[TamilNet, Friday, 31 July 2009, 17:12 GMT]
The fast unto death by Tamil political prisoners in Welikada prison that began Tuesday continues for the fourth day. About two hundred Tamil political prisoners arrested under the Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA) and being held under detention on Defence Ministry orders without being produced in court or without any indictment against them are participating the fast, prison sources said.
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Increase of typhoid, hepatitis reported in internment camps

[TamilNet, Friday, 31 July 2009, 16:56 GMT]
An increase of Typhoid fever and viral Hepatitis has been reported in the internment camps of Vavuniyaa where hundreds of thousands of Vanni civilians in Sri Lanka Army custody are being detained against their wish, health authorities in Vavuniyaa said. Meanwhile, local NGO workers complained that doctors from South who do not converse in Tamil have been deployed inside the internment camps, creating a difficult situation for the Tamil people to communicate using their language.
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Raameasvaram fishermen expected to identify the bodies washed ashore in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Thursday, 30 July 2009, 17:48 GMT]
Sri Lanka Navy (SLN) and Indian Navy (IN) authorities informed Jaffna Fisheries Societies that they would sail the relatives and friends of the Rameasvaram fishermen whose corpses were washed ashore in the islets of Jaffna recently, to Kaangkeasanththu’rai harbour Friday. They are expected to identify the six bodies which lie in Jaffna Teaching Hospital (JTH) mortuary Friday, fisheries society sources in Jaffna said.
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Colombo remembers Alfred Duraiappa, setting hands of the clock backwards

[TamilNet, Thursday, 30 July 2009, 17:45 GMT]
Ruling Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) observed the 34th death anniversary of assassinated Alfred Duraippa, former Mayor of Jaffna, Thursday at his grave in Alfred Duraippa Stadium in Jaffna, sources in Jaffna said. Sri Lankan Minister of Vocational and Technical Training, Piyasena Gamage, and the former Chief Minister of Western Provincial Council, Reginald Cooray and other prominent members of SLFP laid flowers at the grave and garlanded the memorial monument, the sources added.
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Army officer appointed as Commissioner of Rehabilitation

[TamilNet, Thursday, 30 July 2009, 11:13 GMT]
Sri Lanka's President Mahinda Rajapakse has appointed Major General Daya Ratnaike as the new Commissioner General of Rehabilitation, the government information department announced Thursday. He is the latest recruit from the military to the civil administration by Mr. Rajapakse.
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Indian government assists disintegration of Tamil homeland

[TamilNet, Thursday, 30 July 2009, 11:09 GMT]
Government of India on Wednesday announced 66 million SL Rupees scheme to 'develop' communication between the eastern coastal cities, Trincomalee and Batticaloa, in such a way that the two traditional Tamil cities will be effectively linked to the Sinhala districts than with each other. While even the shortest coastal road link between the cities are neglected of development for decades now, the Indian plan is to help Colombo running rail-buses between the cities through the colonial cum Sinhala state railway track that goes in a circular way through the Sinhala districts outside of Eastern Province.
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Tamil political prisoners in Welikada begin fasting demanding their release

[TamilNet, Thursday, 30 July 2009, 06:53 GMT]
A group of Tamil political prisoners currently being detained in Welikada prison for many years without any inquiry and not being produced in court began fast unto death campaign Wednesday demanding their release or to indict them in court. The campaign is being conducted in the Welikada prison complex. However Sri Lankan prison authorities denied that no such fasting is held inside the prison complex.
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3 TNA candidates in Vavuniyaa polls receive death threats - CMEV

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 29 July 2009, 11:56 GMT]
The Centre for Monitoring Election Violence (CMEV) said Wednesday that it received complaints that three candidates of the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) contesting the election to the Vavuniyaa urban Council have been issued with death threats.
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Free civilians from detention camps, HRW tells Sri Lanka

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 29 July 2009, 11:49 GMT]
The Sri Lankan government should immediately release the more than 280,000 internally displaced Tamil civilians held in detention camps, Ney York-based rights group, Human Rights Watch (HRW), again demanded Wednesday. “The government has effectively sealed off the detention camps from outside scrutiny. Human rights organizations, journalists, and other independent observers are not allowed inside,” HRW said. Condemning the mass detention as “outrageous”, HRW cited comments by Walter Kälin, the UN secretary-general’s representative on internally displaced persons, that: “Prolonged internment of such persons would not only amount to arbitrary detention but it also aggravates the humanitarian situation needlessly.”
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India needs to work with IC - Former Indian diplomat

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 28 July 2009, 23:10 GMT]
India has a common interest with the US in countering China’s strategy. No matter the motives behind the US’ current emphasis on a “political settlement”, after having been a staunch supporter of Rajapaksa’s war, Delhi must closely work with the Barack Obama Administration, writes former Indian diplomat M. Bhadrakumar, who sees Delhi’s political leverage over Colombo diminishing in what he thinks ‘post-LTTE’ era. To make up lost influence India needs to work with the IC, promote urgent international monitoring mission and mobilise IC opinion favouring political process and settlement within reasonable timeline, he said.
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