IDP camps in Jaffna to be closed, retaining Thenmarraadchi camps

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 18 November 2009, 16:22 GMT]
Sri Lanka government has decided to close the Jaffna camps in which Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) are detained while retaining Kodikaamam and Mirusuvil camps in Thenmaraadchi, Jaffna Secretariat sources said. According to this plan 68 persons from Mullaiththeevu and Ki’linochchi districts who had no relatives to take responsibility of them were transferred to Thenmaraadchi camps Wednesday from Koappaay Teachers’ College, the sources added.
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New prisons in Ki’linochchi, Maangku’lam, Mullaiththeevu

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 18 November 2009, 09:06 GMT]
Commissioner General of Prisons Major General V. R. de Silva said Tuesday at a press briefing that no political prisoners are detained in prisons. Only 630 persons are held in prisons under the Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA) and Emergency Regulations (ER). Files pertaining to them have been handed over to the Attorney General for necessary action, he added.
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Vanni IDPs in Thenmaradchi camps to be settled in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 17 November 2009, 17:03 GMT]
2010 persons belonging to 624 families from the districts of Mullaiththeevu and Ki’linochchi in Vanni who still remain in the interim camps in Thenmaraachi are to be settled in Jaffna as no relatives or friends had come forward to take the responsibility of looking after them, Jaffna Government Agent (GA), K. Ganesh told media. The government, faced with limited relief resources to maintain the Vanni IDPs in Thenmaraadchi, is trying to get them off its hands, NGO representatives in Jaffna said.
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Ki'linochchi female undergrad arrested in Peradeniya University

[TamilNet, Friday, 13 November 2009, 11:21 GMT]
Sri Lanka Police Criminal Investigation Department (CID) officers took into custody a Tamil female undergrad, a native of Ki’linochchi, Thursday afternoon from Peredeniya University in Kandy but she is yet to be released and her whereabouts remain unknown, according to complaint lodged with Human Rights Commission (HRC) Kandy office by fellow Tamil undergrads.
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Batticaloa AGA posted to Ki’linochchi

[TamilNet, Friday, 06 November 2009, 16:36 GMT]
The Additional Government Agent (AGA) of Batticaloa District in the Eastern Province, Ms. Rupawathy Ketheswaran, was shifted to Kilinochchi District in the Northern Province Thursday in an unexpected move by higher authorities in Colombo, sources in Batticaloa said.
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NP Governor orders all Vanni government servants to immediately report for duties

[TamilNet, Friday, 06 November 2009, 04:43 GMT]
The Governor of Northern Province and former Jaffna district Sri Lanka Army (SLA) Commander, Major Gen. G. A. Chandrsiri, issued an order Wednesday calling all the government servants who had been serving in the districts of Mullaiththeevu and Ki’linochchi in war torn Vanni to immediately report for duties at the IDP camps in Vavuniyaa, in a meeting held in Trincomalee with the heads of the government departments, sources in Vavuniyaa said.
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IDPs brought to Jaffna suffer without shelters

[TamilNet, Friday, 06 November 2009, 04:28 GMT]
The Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) brought to Jaffna district from the Sri Lanka Army (SLA) internment camps in Vavuniyaa are suffering in pouring rain without sufficient shelter for them, sources in Jaffna said. Divisional Secretaries (DSs) of Jaffna district find hard to meet the immediate needs of the IDPs for want of funds, Jaffna Secretariat sources said. The ten government ministers recently appointed by the President of Sri Lanka for Divisional Secretary areas in Jaffna to function as resettlement coordinators have failed to return to Jaffna after their first visit. Jaffna district DSs are at a quandary to take decisions without the approval of the respective ministers and due to lack of funds to spend on the immediate needs of the IDPs, the sources added.
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Husband seeks HRCSL help to trace wife taken by SLA

[TamilNet, Thursday, 05 November 2009, 15:01 GMT]
Suntharalingam Thayaparan, a resident of Ki'linochchi , currently residing in Ne’lukkul’am in Vavuniyaa after being released from Menik Farm internment camp on October 26 has lodged a complaint with the regional office of the Human Rights Commission of Sri Lanka (HRCSL) to trace his wife Veni alias Arunthathi who was taken to Anuradhapura Teaching Hospital by the Sri Lanka Army in a helicopter for treatment to her head injuries caused due to the artillery fire in the last leg of military operation in Vanni region.
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Tamil Eelam not a lost cause: Fr. Jegath Gaspar

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 03 November 2009, 01:14 GMT]
“I don't think Tamil Eelam is a lost cause. If there was any point of time in history that Eelam was a possibility, I think it is now. Tamils all over the world are more determined than ever,” says Fr. Jegath Gaspar Raj, Chennai based Catholic priest and international broadcast journalist in an interview to TamilNet Sunday. “I believe that geopolitics or foreign policy or security policies are never static; they are ever dynamic, they will keep changing. I am confident that at some point of time India will come to realize that the only strategic leverage it has against the Chinese-Sri Lankan combine in the Indian Ocean is the Indo-Tamil combination,” he said, pinning the responsibility for the failure of Indian foreign policy to M K Narayanan Doctrine.
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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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Vanni medical student in Jaffna commits suicide due to mental stress

[TamilNet, Thursday, 29 October 2009, 18:49 GMT]
Jaffna University students paid homage Thursday to their fellow final year medical student from Ki’linochchi in Vanni who is suspected to have his taken his life Wednesday due to mental stress, sources in Jaffna said. Vignarajah Gowribalan, 26, who had been staying in a house in Aanaikkoadai in Jaffna, has been undergoing severe mental agony, being separated from his family detained in one of the Sri Lanka Army (SLA) internment camps in Vavuniyaa, Gowribalan’s fellow students said.
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Vanni IDPs in Jaffna not allowed to go to Vanni

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 28 October 2009, 04:17 GMT]
The Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) of Vanni origin detained in Sri Lanka Army (SLA) detention camp in Raamaavil in Thenmaraadchi have to stay in the camp if there are no relatives in Jaffna to take them over, according to Jaffna Secretariat sources. Though the government campaigns that Vanni IDPs will be resettled in their own villages, in reality they are not allowed to return to their homes, NGOs in Jaffna said.
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Vanni IDPs continued to be detained in Jaffna district camps

[TamilNet, Monday, 26 October 2009, 12:04 GMT]
The Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) from Mullaiththeevu and Ki’linochchi districts in Vanni now held in the detention camps in Mirusuvil, Kodikaamam Naavaladi and Kaithadi will be continued to be held in the same camps, according to Minister Douglas Devananda, who Sunday visited the three camps. Though the government says that it is going to resettle Vanni IDPs in their own villages, in reality they are continued to be held in the camps, NGO sources in Jaffna said.
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Police arrests Tamil youth in Negombo

[TamilNet, Sunday, 11 October 2009, 02:21 GMT]
Negombo police Saturday arrested a Tamil youth while he was staying in his residence alleging that the youth is a senior cadre of the LTTE and had arrived in Negombo a year ago. The arrested youth is being detained by the State Intelligence Unit and being interrogated, police said.
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Jaffna fort to be readied for new colonial masters

[TamilNet, Saturday, 10 October 2009, 10:35 GMT]
In the name of archaeology the Dutch fort of Jaffna is going to be renovated by the Department of Archaeology of Sri Lanka as an abode for visiting Colombo’s dignitaries and Sinhala Buddhist ‘pilgrims,’ news reports say. The fort of Jaffna, originally built by the Portuguese and made into its present form by the Dutch in the 17th century, never ceased to be a symbol of oppression to the people of Jaffna. It never became the cultural property of Tamils to whom it rightfully belongs. After the so-called independence it served as provincial prison, quarters for the Sinhala security forces and the King’s House inside was the guesthouse for Colombo’s politicians. The Sinhala politicians who burnt the Jaffna library in 1981 executed it from the King’s House and the police that killed audience and disturbed the 4th International Tamil Conference in 1974 came from the fort.
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Mass graves fear prevents Colombo from seeking demining help - Sampanthan

[TamilNet, Thursday, 08 October 2009, 11:35 GMT]
"The Sri Lanka government fears that, if the international community gets involved in the de-mining, they may stumble on to mass graves of Tamil victims killed during the last stages of fighting between the Sri Lanka military and the Tamil Tigers," said Parliamentary Group Leader of the Tamil National Alliance (TNA), R. Sampathan, on Thursday accusing the Sri Lankan government of refusing to accept foreign assistance towards the de-mining parliamentary sources in Colombo said.
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Colombo has plans to colonize North with Buddhist Sinhalese – Suresh Premachandran

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 07 October 2009, 17:06 GMT]
The government of Sri Lanka is actively engaged in colonizing Ki’linochchi, Mullaiththeevu and Jaffna district with Sinhalese Buddhists in order to crush the demand for Eelam in the traditional homelands of the Tamils in the North, Suresh Premachandran, Tamil National Alliance (TNA) Jaffna parliamentarian, said in a press meet held Monday in his Jaffna office. He further accused the government for not accepting help from International Community in de-mining Vanni as it does not want the persons from foreign countries to see the mass graves of civilians killed by its armed forces in the Vanni during the war. The MP also said that though the government says that it had resettled 40,000 IDPs from Vavuniyaa internment camps, 95% of them have been again detained in new internment camps in their respective home districts under the direct control of Sri Lankan forces.
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Internment, poisoning hopes of reconciliation - Economist

[TamilNet, Friday, 02 October 2009, 05:29 GMT]
"The fate of a quarter of a million interned Tamils is poisoning Sri Lanka’s hopes of ethnic reconciliation....So long as Tamils feel abused by a racist Sinhalese state, the conflict may resume. Economic development of their shattered regions, which the government is planning, is unlikely to change that. Hence the government’s continued war-footing—but this is in turn also reinforcing Tamil grievances," a feature in the 1st October edition of The Economist said,
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Vavuniyaa camps meant for detainees, not for IDPs - JVP

[TamilNet, Thursday, 01 October 2009, 17:51 GMT]
“It is not a refugee camp if inmates are escaping from that in large numbers. Then it should be called a detention or internment camp. IDP families have freedom to move in and out from IDP camps which are established under international norms. It is not so in Vavuniyaa camps, Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) parliamentarian Wijitha Herat, said at a press briefing held at JVP headquarters in Battaramulla in Colombo Wednesday to discuss matters about the plight of IDPs in Vavuniyaa camps.
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Tamil technologist feared extra-judicially executed in Colombo

[TamilNet, Thursday, 24 September 2009, 15:33 GMT]
Kathiravel Thayapararaja, a 28-year old Tamil Electrical Engineer, is feared to have been extra-judically executed by Sri Lanka intelligent services, after being forcefully abducted sometime second week of September, informed sources in Colombo said. Thayapararaja's wife, Uthayakala, and the two children of her diseased sister who were under Uthayakala's care, have now been taken under the protection and care of a Church Organization in Colombo, after being left helpless with the disappearance of her husband, unconfirmed reports said.
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