SLA soldier killed in truck accident

[TamilNet, Friday, 25 September 2009, 12:00 GMT]
A Sri Lanka Army (SLA) soldier was killed and four others reported injured Friday when the truck they were riding in skidded off in Middeniya road in Embilipitiya, Police said.
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Tamil political prisoners in Colombo on hunger strike

[TamilNet, Thursday, 17 September 2009, 16:05 GMT]
Tamil political prisoners arrested on suspicion under Emergency Regulations (ER) and Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA), languishing in Magazine Prison and Colombo Remand Prison (CPR) for many years without being produced in the courts, launched a hunger strike from 6:00 a.m Thursday as their requests placed in previous hunger strikes had not been taken into consideration despite promises by legal authorities that their cases will be taken for trial in two months time, sources in Colombo said. The fasting prisoners said the President of Sri Lanka has granted general amnesty to the soldiers who had deserted their posts during the war, in the past few months and hence it would be an easy matter for the President to use his executive powers at least to order to take up our cases immediately for trial as we had only been arrested on suspicion.
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Executions: Sri Lanka refuting processed video, not original

[TamilNet, Saturday, 12 September 2009, 09:32 GMT]
Sri Lanka’s technological refutation of the authenticity of a video of Army (SLA) soldiers executing unarmed Tamil men broadcast by Channel 4 in August is based on a processed video-file taken from the broadcaster’s website, rather than the original mobile phone footage, experts said. An analysis commissioned by US-based pressure group Tamils Against Genocide (TAG) of the original video distributed by Journalists for Democracy in Sri Lanka (JDS) and Sri Lanka’s subsequent technological refutation says Colombo’s experts looked “at a second generation transcoded video to derive erroneous conclusions.”
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"Sri Lanka, stop" says Le Monde

[TamilNet, Friday, 11 September 2009, 11:44 GMT]
"After winning the war, the Sri Lankan regime is in the process of losing the peace. Following the historic, but bloody and distasteful victory, against the armed struggle of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), the Sri Lanka's President Mahinda Rajapaksa could be magnanimous and reach out to the Tamil minority and open the way for national reconciliation. But Rajapakse has chosen another path, the path of domination...Under the tents of the refugee camps tomorrow's Tigers may already be rising to mount a future rebellion," warned France's popular daily, Le Monde in Thursday editorial.
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2 Tamil youths arrested in Colombo

[TamilNet, Friday, 11 September 2009, 08:43 GMT]
Sri Lanka Army (SLA) soldiers took into custody two Tamil youths in a search conducted Thursday night in Kohuwala, a suburb of Colombo city, according to complaints made by the youths’ relatives to Deputy Minister, R. Rathakrishnan.
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Western inaction the building blocks of Chinese vassal state - Former Australian Diplomat

[TamilNet, Friday, 11 September 2009, 00:22 GMT]
Nations operating behind the Sri Lankan Governments’ manipulation of the post 9-11 global climate in equating 'Tamil and terrorist' continue to ignore their humanitarian obligations to the point of complicity accused former Australian diplomat Bruce Haigh, referring to the imprisonment of 300,000 Tamil refugees in government camps. Speaking at a forum held at The University of Sydney last week, Haigh described the actions of the Sri Lankan Government as one of “pure vindictiveness…towards people who are totally dispossessed and totally powerless”, before warning that the island may become “a vassal state of China.. not averse to carrying out acts of terror and in the future that may be directed towards India in ways to be determined by the Chinese".
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Channel-4 broadcast of internment camp conditions irks Colombo

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 09 September 2009, 00:11 GMT]
Following the broadcast of shocking video footage showing Sri Lanka Government soldiers executing Tamils stripped naked and hands tied behind their backs, British Television Channel-4 Monday revealed a new film that showed Tamil "victims of Sri Lanka's war suffering poor conditions in UN-funded camps." The new footage, allegedly taken by a mobile phone, was sent to Channel-4 from the group War Without Witness, and was reportedly shot two weeks ago in Vavuniyaa, in northern Sri Lanka, where more than 300,000 Tamils are being interned in Sri Lanka military supervised camps. Sri Lanka's spokesperson, while insisting that United Nations is active inside there [the camps], responded that the malnutrition statistics reflect "Western standards," indeed malnutrition is present in other parts of Sri Lanka, and also that the situation was worse under the Liberation Tigers.
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TNA's meeting with Rajapaksa fails to resolve IDP crisis

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 08 September 2009, 12:24 GMT]
Tamil National Alliance (TNA) parliamentarians who held talks with Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa and his ministers Monday evening at Temple Trees on the issue of resettling Vanni IDPs in their own places, said that the talks ended in failure as Mr. Rajapaksa evaded the main issue by saying resettlement of Vanni IDPs is not immediately possible as demining in Vanni has to be completed before resettlement. The urgent request to resettle the Vanni IDPs in Vavuniyaa internment camps before the monsoon rains was not given any due consideration by Rajapaksa and his ministers, TNA parliamentarians said.
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SLA massacred civilians in bunkers - medical worker

[TamilNet, Monday, 07 September 2009, 08:57 GMT]
The advancing Sri Lanka Army massacred civilians by paving their bunkers with tanks, by throwing explosives inside the bunkers and by shooting the injured, says a medical worker who came out of Mu’l’li-vaaykkaal during the last days of the war, became incarcerated in a camp and now escaped the island. "Around a hundred thousand captured civilians herded to Mullaiththeevu were kept in rows within barbed wires, most of the time without water or food under the hot sun, and were bullied and ill treated with arrogance," he writes in a lengthy note that reached TamilNet this week. The note in Tamil was provided by the Norwegian Tamils Health Organisation (NTHO), urging TamilNet not to reveal the identity of the health worker for reasons of his security.
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Return of 3,800 detained Tamils cancelled – TearFund

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 02 September 2009, 02:29 GMT]
TearFund, a Christian relief and development agency, this week renewed its call for hundreds of thousands of Tamils detained in Sri Lanka’s concentration camps to be allowed home. A scheduled return of 3,800 detained Tamils to a region being assisted by TearFund was cancelled two days ago - even after detainees had packed to return home, the agency said. TearFund also called for an international commission of inquiry into possible war crimes committed by both sides during the armed conflict in Sri Lanka after viewing Channel 4 video footage, allegedly showing Sri Lanka army soldiers executing Tamil men in January of this year.
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Video, leaked memo bedevil Moon's climate visit to Norway

[TamilNet, Sunday, 30 August 2009, 13:23 GMT]
International Development Minister Erik Solheim told Norway's Aftenposten Wednesday that he will discuss the details of the gruesome video showing Sri Lanka soldiers executing naked, bound men, during Ban Ki Moon's Norway visit this week. Meanwhile, the visit occurs while 'The Economist' gave Mr. Moon a failed grade in his UN performance (30%), and a leaked memo by Norway’s Ambassador to the United Nations, Mona Juul, accused Moon for being a "passive observer when thousands lost lives and were driven from their homes [in Sri Lanka]," in her mid term assessment of Ban’s tenure.
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Horrendous video images indicate violation of International Law - UN expert

[TamilNet, Friday, 28 August 2009, 22:23 GMT]
Philip Alston, the UN Special Rapporteur on extra-judicial, summary or arbitrary executions, commenting on the video clip aired in British Channel-4 TV, allegedly showing Sri Lankan troops executing prisoners, stressed the need for an investigation, AFP reported. The images, which Alston described as "horrendous," indicate a serious violation of international law if found to be authentic, AFP reported Alston as saying. The video showed victims stripped naked and their hands crossed and tied behind their backs, when they were executed.
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HRW: UN must investigate Sri Lanka atrocities

[TamilNet, Thursday, 27 August 2009, 11:16 GMT]
In the wake of a mobile-phone footage of Sri Lankan soldiers executing bound, blindfolded, and naked prisoners, Human Rights Watch (HRW) has again called on the United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon to create an independent international commission of inquiry to investigate atrocities during Sri Lanka’s war against the Tamil Tigers. “Ban should stop relying on the [Sri Lankan] president's promises [to the UN] of domestic action and make it clear that an international commission is needed if the victims of Sri Lanka's bloody war are to find justice," Steve Crawshaw, UN director at HRW said in a statement Wednesday.
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SLA war crimes eerily similar to Srebrenica Scorpions' terror, says Boyle

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 26 August 2009, 00:27 GMT]
Summary executions violate Common Article 3 to the Four Geneva Conventions of 1949, to which Sri Lanka is a contracting Party, prohibiting in subsection I(d) "... the carrying out of executions without previous judgment pronounced by a regularly constituted court...." Violations of the Geneva Conventions are war crimes, said Professor Francis Boyle, after watching the video on the cold-blooded extra-judicial killings carried out by the Sri Lanka Army (SLA) soldiers, published by a German-based group 'Journalists for Democracy in Sri Lanka (JDS)' Tuesday.
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Video shows style of extra-judicial killings in Sri Lanka

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 25 August 2009, 20:34 GMT]
A video clip received from Journalists for Democracy in Sri Lanka (JDS) evidences the way extra-judicial killings are executed in the island. The video captured in January show the behaviour of Sri Lanka’s soldiers during the war that is claimed ‘humanitarian operation’ to rescue the Tamils, JDS reported Tuesday. The conversations of the killers are in Sinhala. “From the casual nature of the conversations and from the fact that it is taking place in an open area in broad daylight – it can be surmised that these are not ordinary acts by rogue elements carried out without the permission from the top leadership. The soldiers egging each other on, the insulting jokes and the laughter show that there is a consensus that these cold blooded killings should take place,” JDS further reported.
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Sri Lanka maintains military spending, recruits 50,000 more troops

[TamilNet, Thursday, 20 August 2009, 11:06 GMT]
Sri Lanka will keep up record defence spending despite its recent victory over the Tamil Tigers, Defence secretary Gotabhaya Rajapakse told AFP Tuesday, as the Sri Lankan Army announced plans to recruit 50,000 more soldiers shortly. Sri Lanka raised its defence budget to a record 1.6 billion dollars this year, and finally defeated the LTTE in May after months of intense battles in which 20,000 Tamil civilians were massacred by government shelling. 6,000 Sri Lankan soldiers were killed in last three months of the war, Gotabhaya also said.
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SLA, police ban rally in Mannaar

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 19 August 2009, 17:48 GMT]
Sri Lanka Army and Police Wednesday banned the demonstration and rally organized by the Consortium of Humanitarian Agencies (CHA) in Mannaar demanding the immediate resettlement of internally displaced families detained in camps in Vavuniyaa, lifting all restrictions on travelling and entering hospitals in Vavuniyaa and Mannaar and to find a political solution for the conflict and the removal of restriction on fishing and farming.
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Indians need three years to clear mines

[TamilNet, Monday, 03 August 2009, 11:36 GMT]
It will take one-and-a-half to two years to do away with most land mines and another year to declare the areas safe for habitation, reported Times of India, Sunday, citing Indian Army’s retired Major General Prem K. Puri who is heading one of the Indian outfits engaged in de-mining the North and East. Meanwhile, 82 more former Indian soldiers have gone to Sri Lanka last week to join the hundreds or perhaps thousands already operating under the care of Colombo’s National Steering Committee. Mahinda Rajapaksa’s insistence on ‘de-mining first’ to free civilians from the concentration camps and India sitting on international intervention raise serious concern in Tamil circles, how long both the Establishments are going to continue the ‘human shield’ in fulfilling their agenda.
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Young couple knifed to death in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 29 July 2009, 20:04 GMT]
Unidentified armed men broke through the roof of a house in Koa’ndaavil East in Jaffna and killed a young couple with sharp bladed weapons Tuesday night during Sri Lanka Amy imposed curfew hours, sources in Jaffna said. Meanwhile, number of robberies in Jaffna has risen in Jaffna in the last few days where people have been also attacked with knives, the sources added.
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Rajapaksa grants amnesty to SLA deserters during Buddhist rite

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 28 July 2009, 11:19 GMT]
Sri Lanka's President and Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces, Mahinda Rajapaksa, on the occasion of Esala Perahera, the Sri Lankan Buddhist festival that commemorates the scared tooth of Buddha, has granted an special amnesty for 1,933 Sri Lanka Army (SLA) deserters including SLA officers released from several prisons, Sri Lankan police authorities said Tuesday.
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