Boycott Colombo International Tamil Writers Conference - Tamil Nadu Creativists

[TamilNet, Sunday, 05 September 2010, 06:36 GMT]
The Association of Tamil Creativists in Tamil Nadu against the Colombo International Tamil Writers Conference to be held in Colombo from 5th to 8th January 2011 has appealed to all Tamil writers to boycott the Colombo conference in a message to media released Tuesday in Chennai. Several leading Tamil creativists including writers, artists, film industry persons and journalists who took part in the Tuesday press meet have signed the appeal.
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Hard questions for India and Eezham Tamils

[TamilNet, Saturday, 04 September 2010, 06:33 GMT]
Nirupama Menon Rao expressed satisfaction at the progress in resettlement of Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) and development activities of the North, said state-owned Colombo newspaper Daily News Thursday, titling the news as “Indian investment interest rising”. But, reporting on Nirupama’s visit, The Hindu on Friday titled the news “Political solution should be priority” and cited her saying to Colombo-based Indian journalists that “While the focus on development and rehabilitation is very welcome, a long term perspective that also includes the issues relating to the political settlement that would meet some of the needs of the minorities should also be kept in mind.”
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Properties of uprooted in Vanni plundered with SLA assistance

[TamilNet, Thursday, 02 September 2010, 05:55 GMT]
Muslim and Sinhala traders from Southern Sri Lanka are actively plundering the properties abandoned when the people of Vanni were forced to leave them during war, with the assistance of Sri Lanka Army (SLA) soldiers occupying Vanni. The traders make huge profits transporting them in vehicles to Vavuniyaa, Anurdapura and Puththa’lam for sale. The plundered goods include iron objects, spare parts dismantled from abandoned vehicles, house fittings and other valuable things. SLA soldiers are given a percentage of the profits made by the traders for allowing them to plunder and transport the goods of the people in Vanni to the South, sources in Vanni said.
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1215 uprooted civilians abandoned in Visuvamadu in Vanni - MP

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 01 September 2010, 02:30 GMT]
1215 uprooted civilians from Vanni brought from the camps three months ago in the name of resettlement are held without any help in Visuvamadu area in Mullaiththeevu district, Suresh Premachandran, Tamil National Alliance (TNA) MP, who visited them Monday told media. Mullaiththeevu district Sri Lanka Army (SLA) authorities do not allow them to settle in their own lands in the district and the people abandoned by government authorities and humanitarian organizations are subjected to untold hardships. The families say that they will look after themselves if only they are allowed to settle in their own properties, the MP said.
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Nirupama faces civil society outburst in North

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 31 August 2010, 17:31 GMT]
India provided arms and logistical support to Colombo in the Vanni war. It didn’t take any effort to stop the war. Even after one year of the war, India didn’t act on rehabilitating the incarcerated people, accused members of the confederation of citizens’ forums in Jaffna while meeting the visiting Indian Foreign Secretary Nirupama Menon Rao on Tuesday. Resettlement is a hoodwink in Vanni, said retired Senior Professor S.K. Sitrampalam of the University of Jaffna, expressing the strong sentiments of Eezham Tamils. Army has occupied the Tamil lands and people have strong doubts whether India would be of any help in Tamils getting a political solution, the civil society representatives told the visiting Indian diplomat.
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'Anti-Tamil ideology, international meddling make reconciliation impossible'

[TamilNet, Monday, 30 August 2010, 14:42 GMT]
In a recent paper titled "Why National Reconciliation in Sri Lanka Is Not Possible," Brian Senewiratne, a renowned physician and an Australia based Sinhala expatriate, says although he had realized that ‘national reconciliation’ in Sri Lanka was ‘totally unrealistic’, after witnessing the major human rights violations inflicted upon the Tamil people, what has made the reconciliation really ‘impossible’ was the most serious recent slaughter of Tamils with features of genocide. In addition, what makes reconciliation ‘most unlikely’ is ‘international meddling’ and ‘power play’, he argues. The 78-year-old member of the Bandaranaike family, who is a long-time defender of the Eezham Tamil cause, also argues in his paper that even the real development of the Sinhala areas is not possible if the ‘developmental power’ is left in the hands of those in Colombo.
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Colombo "deliberately shelled civilians," accuses UN's departing Holmes

[TamilNet, Friday, 27 August 2010, 11:18 GMT]
United Nation's Human Rights Co-ordinator, John Holmes, in a parting shot at Colombo the end of his 3-year tenure at the UN, defended his department's funding of the Sri Lanka government's internment camps where more than 350,000 held for several months while admitting the Sri Lanka government may have “deliberately shelled” civilians and hospitals, Inner City Press reported.
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Sri Lanka's presumptive war-criminal to take UN job in New York

[TamilNet, Friday, 27 August 2010, 00:02 GMT]
Sri Lanka's Deputy Permanent Representative (DPR) to the United Nation's post in New York, vacant following the recall of previous DPR, Bandula Jayasekera, after an alleged sexual harassment scandal, is reported to be filled by Major General Shavendra Silva, former 58th Division commander, who has been accused of committing war crimes by his former General Sarath Fonseka, Inner City Press reported. Professor Francis Boyle, an expert in International Law, commenting on this reported UN job said, "the Government of Sri Lanka (GOSL) is trying to sanitize and immunize their genocidaires/war criminals and thus regularize it all."
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Resettled families in Vanni left to suffer in downpour

[TamilNet, Thursday, 26 August 2010, 06:43 GMT]
Rains have been pouring down in Vanni for the last four days with the break of North East Monsoon in Sri Lanka and the resettled families sheltered under makeshift huts without proper roofing are left without any assistance to face the onslaught of the monsoon that will last until the end of December, Non-government Organization (NGO) representatives who visited Vanni said. Promises of constructing houses for the resettled families in Vanni by the Indian government and World Bank are yet to be fulfilled.
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‘Development’ conquistadors have no appetite for psychological need of Eezham Tamils

[TamilNet, Friday, 20 August 2010, 07:07 GMT]
Psychotherapy provides meaning for the enormous suffering people have undergone to hope for the future and to hope for trust in the world, says Daya Somasundaram of the University of Jaffna, one of the very few psychiatrics serving the war affected Eezham Tamils in the island. Considering the long history in the island, the meaning comes only when Eezham Tamils get their land and affairs into their hands and when their nation is recognised. But the ‘development’ conquistadors of the West and India show no appetite for basic psychology needed for regeneration in the context of the island, commented Tamil circles, citing Indian Foreign Secretary Nirupama Menon Rao who is scheduled to visit the island saying that conflict in the island had ended and India has to go beyond rehabilitation to look at development, without any reference to the crux of the matter.
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British youth’s war crimes awareness walk to conclude Friday

[TamilNet, Friday, 20 August 2010, 00:40 GMT]
The British Tamil youth who set out to highlight the need for an international investigation into Sri Lanka’s war crimes through an awareness-raising walk from London to the United Nations in Geneva is near the end of his journey, fellow activists said. Well wishers from several European countries are traveling to Switzerland to welcome him there. Gobi Sivanthan has almost reached Geneva, activists said Thursday night. Whilst French media outlets have reported regularly on his progress through France, local and national police have provided support along the way to facilitate Sivanthan and his supporters. Meanwhile, a group of British Parliamentarians hailed the youth’s efforts, describing it as “a noble mission for a noble cause.”
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2 Indian High Commission officials on sudden visit to Jaffna

[TamilNet, Monday, 09 August 2010, 19:05 GMT]
Two key officials of the Indian High Commission to Sri Lanka in Colombo visited Jaffna Monday and held talks with high officers of Sri Lanka Amy (SLA) and police in Jaffna Secretariat. Northern Province Governor Major Gen. G. A. Chandrasiri and Jaffna Government Agent, Ms. Imelda Sukumar participated in this meeting, sources in Jaffna said. The visit of the Indian officials had not been announced and local media was not allowed to cover the meeting.
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Malaysian politician to form Committee on genocide in Sri Lanka

[TamilNet, Sunday, 08 August 2010, 14:26 GMT]
Deputy Chief Minister of Penang, and human rights advocate, Prof. Ramasamy, is to form an international committee to collect evidence on the genocide of Tamils in Sri Lanka, with the aim of presenting a case to the United Nations (UN) Human Rights Panel, a Malaysian companian site to the Sun newspaper said Sunday. "The group will also fight for human rights anywhere, in places where people are deprived of their rights and privileges," said the Batu Kawan MP who is a long-time human right activist.
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British PR firm whitewashing Sri Lanka’s reputation - report

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 04 August 2010, 22:35 GMT]
British public relations firm Bell Pottinger Sans Frontiers is working for the Sri Lankan government to improve Colombo’s international image, in the wake of its mass killings of Tamil civilians last year and ongoing rights abuses, The Guardian newspaper said this week in an investigative report into UK firms’ role in ‘reputation laundering’ for unsavoury regimes and leaders. "An investigation by the Guardian has revealed that [London’s] public relations firms are earning millions of pounds a year promoting foreign regimes with some of the world's worst human rights records, including Saudi Arabia, Rwanda, Kazakhstan and Sri Lanka," the paper said.
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SLA exploits Chinese funds meant for resettlement of uprooted Vanni civilians

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 04 August 2010, 07:27 GMT]
Sri Lanka Army (SLA) occupying Vanni is exploiting funds donated by China for the resettlement of uprooted Vanni people to construct permanent housing schemes for its personnel, in Kokkaavil, located west of A9 road in Vanni, civil society organizations in K'linochchi said. Uprooted civilians forcibly taken by SLA soldiers to work in the constructions said that even two storey buildings are under construction in an area where new roads have been laid. Meanwhile, around 3,000 uprooted families, brought to be resettled in Vanni by Sri Lanka government, continue to live under trees left abandoned while Sri Lanka government exploits international assistance meant for them to settle Sinhalese families from South, Suresh Premachandran, Tamil National Alliance (TNA) parliamentarian said.
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SLA claims Kurunakar HSZ removed

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 03 August 2010, 23:46 GMT]
Acting Military spokesman, Colonel Duminda Gamage, talking to the Colombo media Tuesday, claimed that the High Security Zone (HSZ) in the Kurunakar area in Jaffna has been removed. He further said that this step has been taken to facilitate the resettlement of civilian, and added HSZ is gradually being dismantled since Monday and civilians are being allowed to reoccupy their former dwellings.
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Resettled families in Vanni left abandoned in deserted places

[TamilNet, Sunday, 01 August 2010, 13:54 GMT]
Sri Lanka Army (SLA) in Vanni has refused permission to the uprooted families of Kumaarasaamipuram and Mayilvaakanapuram in Ki’linochchi district to resettle in their lands claiming that the area is infested with landmines, sources in Ki’linochchi said. These people were brought from Vavuniyaa SLA Menik Farm camp by Sri Lanka government authorities promising resettlement in their own villages. But now they are left abandoned in deserted places without sufficient food, water, hygienic facilities and safety, the affected civilians said.
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SLA appropriates uprooted civilians’ villages in Vanni

[TamilNet, Saturday, 31 July 2010, 04:43 GMT]
Occupying Sri Lanka Army (SLA) in Vanni has declared the villages of Mayilvaakanapuram and Kumarasaamipuram in Ki’linochchi district not allowed for resettlement as they had been reserved for SLA use, sources in Ki’linochchi said. 140 uprooted families of the two villages brought to be resettled two months back after detention in Vavuniyaa SLA camp by Sri Lankan civil authorities have not been allowed to resettle in their properties.
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Resettled couple in Vanni attempt suicide, husband dies

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 27 July 2010, 16:39 GMT]
A young couple, recently resettled in Ki’linochchi district in Vanni, attempted to kill themselves Sunday. The neighbours rushed them to Ki’linochchi government hospital where the husband died and the wife, transferred to Jaffna Teaching Hospital, is admitted in the Intensive Care Unit. The couple had lost all four of their children during the war in Puthumaaththa’lan, killed in Sri Lanka Army (SLA) shelling on civilians, sources in Ki’linochchi said. Frustration over their children’s death and the loss of all their belongings had driven the couple to attempt suicide, the neighbours said.
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SLA conducts search operation in Batticaloa

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 27 July 2010, 16:04 GMT]
Atleast six hundred soldiers of the Sri Lanka Army (SLA) conducted a house to house search in Onththachchimadam in Batticaloa district from Sunday morning for several hours. Tension prevailed among residents of the village when the soldiers surrounded the village without allowing any one to leave their houses, sources in Batticaloa said.
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