Attend to Vanni IDPs’ problems first – Jaffna University Students Union

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 28 July 2009, 17:10 GMT]
“We strongly criticize the Tamil politicians who seek votes without attending to the problems faced by the Vanni people held in the internment camps in Vavuniyaa,” Jaffna University Students Union (JUSU) said in a press release Tuesday in Jaffna. “We are deeply dissatisfied with some Tamil National Alliance (TNA) parliamentarians who do not attend to the immediate problems of the Vanni IDPs,” JUSU said in its press release.
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8 Tamil youths arrested in Colombo

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 28 July 2009, 13:48 GMT]
Sri Lanka police took into custody eight Tamil youths Tuesday morning in a search conducted in Ettiyawathe in Colombo. The arrested youths are from Jaffna, their relatives said.
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Sri Lankan port yet to clear Mercy Mission supplies

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 28 July 2009, 11:09 GMT]
Sri Lankan port authorities in Colombo are refusing to hand over the humanitarian supplies of Tamil diaspora Mercy Mission, stating that the Indian authorities are yet to produce necessary documents including the Bill of Lading, Sri Lankan Red Cross officials in Colombo said. Meanwhile, customs authorities in Colombo said though the government has waved off the import duty, the Sri Lankan Red Cross has to pay demurrage for harbouring the cargo in the port.
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US ‘deeply concerned’ by Sri Lanka’s camps, wants resettlement

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 28 July 2009, 01:04 GMT]
A top United States official Monday visited the most presentable of the squalid, militarized camps in which Sri Lanka has interned three hundred thousand Tamils. “The United States remains deeply concerned about a range of issues where further progress is essential,” Assistant Secretary of State for Population, Refugees and Migration from the US State Department Eric P. Schwartz said. “In particular, the vast majority of displaced persons remain confined to camps, and my visit to Manik Farm and my conversations with displaced persons underscored for me the hardships they are enduring,” he said.
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IMF takes charge in Sri Lanka

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 28 July 2009, 00:02 GMT]
Whilst Sri Lanka’s government hailed its securing of an IMF loan for $2.6bn last week as a ‘victory’ and as indication of international support for its political and economic policies, the reality is the reverse. Sri Lanka has been compelled to accept not only painful economic and quasi-political obligations, but also the kind of external supervision the ultra-Sinhala nationalist regime routinely rails against. Moreover, whilst the IMF loan is ostensibly to revive Sri Lanka’s economy, its first purpose is to ensure the government keeps up with repayments to prior foreign lenders. In short, Sri Lanka can borrow from the IMF to pay back its creditors but has to undertake harsh economic reforms - under IMF supervision - for the breathing space.
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TNA accuses government of using state resources in JMC election campaign

[TamilNet, Monday, 27 July 2009, 16:36 GMT]
Ruling United People’s Freedom Alliance (UPFA) conducted Sunday a large scale procession of vehicles organized by Eelam People’s Democratic Party (EPDP) in Jaffna town in which more than a thousand supporters participated, canvassing people to vote for the Betel symbol of UPFA, sources in Jaffna said. Meanwhile, Tamil National Alliance (TNA) which has also entered into the fray, accused UPFA and its ally EPDP of using government vehicles for election campaign. TNA also accused the police for being partial to UPFA in carrying out duties related to Jaffna Municipal Council (JMC) election, the sources added.
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Supreme Indiscretion

[TamilNet, Monday, 27 July 2009, 01:23 GMT]
While the U.S. voters closely followed the intense scrutiny at the recent Senate hearing to appoint Judge Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court - the venerable institution that the U.S. public trusts will make decisions based on law to create a just society - Sri Lanka's Supreme Court and the judicial system where the justices are appointed at the whims of Sri Lanka's President, came under scathing attack by International Bar Association Human Rights Institute (‘IBAHRI’), and the International Crisis Group (ICG). IBAHRI report said, among other concerns, "[t]he lack of independent oversight and practice of executive presidential discretion over judicial appointments makes the judiciary vulnerable to executive interference and jeopardizes its independence."
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Political struggle will continue until Tamil aspirations are met -Sampanthan

[TamilNet, Sunday, 26 July 2009, 18:43 GMT]
"Tamil militancy was a part of the political struggle of the Tamil people to achieve the right to self-determination in the traditional homeland of the Tamil people in the northeast. The Sri Lanka government says that the armed struggle has been completely defeated. But the political struggle of Tamil people would go on till the legitimate political aspirations of the Tamil people are achieved," said Mr.R.Sampanthan, leader of the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) parliamentary group, addressing a meeting in Vavuniyaa Saturday in support of the TNA candidates contesting the elections to the Vavuniyaa Urban Council under the banner Ilankai Thamil Arasu Kadchchi (ITAK).
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JMC election candidates complain of police malpractice

[TamilNet, Sunday, 26 July 2009, 13:01 GMT]
Candidates contesting Jaffna Municipal Council (JMC) election raised complaints about police and Sri Lanka Army (SLA) in Jaffna assisting ruling United Peoples Freedom Alliance (UPFA) persons pasting election campaign wall posters displaying the images of President Mahinda Rajapakse and Minister Douglas Devananda even during SLA imposed curfew hours in Jaffna town, in a meeting held by police authorities in Jaffna Sunday at Vembadi Girls’ College in Jaffna to discuss security arrangements for the contestants, sources in Jaffna said.
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2 Tamil youths arrested in Colombo

[TamilNet, Saturday, 25 July 2009, 04:23 GMT]
Seeduwa Police took into custody two Tamil youths Thursday on their arrival from Singapore. The vehicle in which they were travelling from Katunayake International Airport (KIA) was stopped at a road block in Seeduwa area and checked. Police said the youths were taken in for questioning and have recovered several digital cameras and cell phones which were in their possession.
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Genocide Studies Center holds Sri Lanka event in Minnesota campus

[TamilNet, Saturday, 25 July 2009, 01:17 GMT]
During an event on Sri Lanka's civil war sponsored by Center of Holocaust and Genocide Studies, the Human Rights Center, and the Genocide Intervention Network-Minnesota, and held Wednesday at the College of Liberal Arts, University of Minnesota, Dr. Ellen Kennedy, the Interim Director for the Center of Holocaust and Genocide Studies spoke of the 25 million IDPs in 25 countries with 425,000 IDPs in Sri Lanka alone. "IDPs own country is responsible for the well being of the IDPs, but it is mainly the same country by its own action creates the IDPs," she said.
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US, UK, France abstain, IMF vote to approve Sri Lanka loan

[TamilNet, Saturday, 25 July 2009, 00:10 GMT]
Despite opposition from the US, UK, and France, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) Friday approved a $2.6B loan to Sri Lanka, of which approximately $322m will be made available immediately, wire reports from Washington D.C. said. "The U.S. position was based on an assessment, in the current circumstances, of the ability and commitment of the government to carry out necessary policy adjustments during an IMF program," a U.S. Treasury spokesperson said. A British Government source said that that it was “not the right time to go forward” with the loan, because Sri Lanka is forcibly detaining nearly 300,000 mostly Tamil refugees in internment camps and spending a large proportion of its wealth on its military - even though the country’s bloody 26-year civil war ended in May, British daily, The Times reported.
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1200 Southern police personnel to be engaged in JMC election duties

[TamilNet, Friday, 24 July 2009, 18:53 GMT]
Sri Lanka government has taken steps to bring 1200 police personnel to Jaffna in vehicles along A9 route to be engaged in election duties in the forthcoming Jaffna Municipal Council (JMC) election, police high officials in Jaffna said. This announcement comes amidst accusations raised by Tamil National Alliance (TNA) that the government is planning to use these police personnel in unfair ways to conduct the election to achieve its own ends, sources in Jaffna said.
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Chomsky: Sri Lanka, a Rwanda-like major atrocity the West didn't care

[TamilNet, Friday, 24 July 2009, 10:40 GMT]
Prof Noam Chomsky, professor emeritus of linguistics at MIT, said Thursday during a United Nations forum on Responsibility to Protect (R2P), that what happened in Sri Lanka was a major Rwanda-like atrocity, in a different scale, where the West didn't care. "There was plenty of early warning. This [conflict] has been going on for years and decades. Plenty of things could have been done [to prevent it]. But there was not enough interest." Chomsky was responding to a question that referred to Jan Egeland, former head of UN's Humanitarian Affairs' earlier statement that R2P was a failure in Sri Lanka, where Inner City Press (ICP) noted that nearly 20,000 Tamil civilians were killed.
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Vanni IDP family files FR seeking release from “internment camp”

[TamilNet, Friday, 24 July 2009, 07:35 GMT]
A Fundamental Rights violation petition has been filed in Sri Lanka Supreme Court Thursday seeking the release of a four-member family displaced from Vanni and currently being detained in one of the several camps in Vavuniyaa and to order two million rupees as compensation for illegal detention. Seventy-year-old Kanapathipillai Ehambaram of Naachchikudaa filed the FR petition on behalf of her daughter, son-in-law, and two grand daughters now being detained in a camp located in Vavuniyaa Koayil Ku'lam, legal sources said.
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Grass root organisations form Global Tamil Forum

[TamilNet, Thursday, 23 July 2009, 23:57 GMT]
A number of grass root Tamil organisations across the world on Thursday launched an initiative in forming Global Tamil Forum (GTF) said Suren Surendran of British Tamil Forum, which is one of the constituent organisations of the Forum. The Tamil diaspora is united in restoring the sovereignty of Eezham Tamils in their homeland and bring the perpetrators of crimes against humanity to justice, Mr. Surendran told TamilNet. The Forum will work for the benefit of Eelam Tamils based on the principles of the Vaddukkoaddai Resolution that recognises Self-Determination of Eezham Tamils in creating an independent and sovereign Tamil Eelam in the traditional homeland of Eezham Tamils in the island of Sri Lanka, said Dr. Sampavi Parimalanathan, a diaspora activist in Australia.
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Foreign aid fuels Sri Lanka’s ‘extortion economy’ - paper

[TamilNet, Thursday, 23 July 2009, 22:50 GMT]
As many international observers have recently outlined, Sri Lanka is simply not a responsible member of the international community and must not be treated by donors as such, the Tamil Guardian newspaper argued this week. Moreover, “unless donors are prepared to exploit Sri Lanka's vulnerability and deploy sanctions and conditionalities - rather than the ineffective incentives for reform as in the past - neither peace nor stability will emerge in the coming years, but the reverse,” the paper said.
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Sri Lanka’s policies contradict IMF loan’s goals - HRW

[TamilNet, Thursday, 23 July 2009, 21:44 GMT]
The Sri Lankan government’s policies threaten post-conflict reconstruction, reconciliation, and stability and undermine the very purposes for which the IMF’s proposed loan is to be used, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said Thursday. The human rights pressure group said as “minimum benchmarks”, the IMF should make disbursement of funds conditional on Sri Lanka “allowing [diplaced] people to choose for themselves whether to stay in the [government] camps and full access for independent monitors.”
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Government trying to win JMC election using unfair means – TNA parliamentarian

[TamilNet, Thursday, 23 July 2009, 16:20 GMT]
“Sri Lanka government plans to bring 80 Sinhalese officers from South to serve as Junior Polling Officers in the forthcoming Jaffna Municipal Council (JMC) election while there are sufficient Tamil speaking government officers in Jaffna to conduct the election; it is obvious that the government intends to win the election by rigging as it had done in the East,” Suresh Premachandran, Jaffna District Tamil National Alliance (TNA) parliamentarian, said in a press meet held in the TNA Thamizharasuk Kadchchi (TK) office in Jaffna. TNA chief candidate Mudiyappu Remedias participated in the press meet.
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3 washed ashore bodies in the islets of Jaffna identified

[TamilNet, Thursday, 23 July 2009, 15:33 GMT]
Three of the six bodies washed ashore since Sunday in the islets of Jaffna have been identified as belonging to fishermen from Raameasvaram in Tamil Nadu, according to the identity cards found on the recovered bodies. Meanwhile, fishermen returning from the sea in the islets Thursday said that another body was sighted in the sea and that it would reach the shore Thursday night or Friday morning.
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