Awakening North, an election gimmick? - Sunday Leader

[TamilNet, Sunday, 19 July 2009, 11:37 GMT]
Noting that the loan scheme announced by the Sri Lanka Government to Northern small scale enterprises while soliciting donations for the diaspora for refugee relief, exposed the scarcity of funds to support Jaffna loans, an article in Sunday Leader, said that the loan announcement is likely an election ploy to woo Jaffna voters towards the ruling UPFA. Questioning the motives for recent actions by the Central Bank in not revealing the details of IMF Article IV consultation report, and suspending publication of weekly economic indicators, the article said the reluctance of the Government to set free the screened IDPs in the internment camps is likely driven by the need to mobilize "humanitarian aid from the donors and donations from the diaspora to bolster the foreign currency reserves of the government."
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Disease outbreak keeps UN staff away from Vavuniyaa hospital

[TamilNet, Sunday, 19 July 2009, 02:14 GMT]
Vavuniya-based United Nations staff providing relief services to the Internally Displaced People (IDPs) has been advised to keep away from the Vavuniya General Hospital due to an outbreak of meningitis and encephalitis, health officials in Vavuniyaa said. The UN warning to staff came amidst reports that hospital employees at Vavuniya had failed to inform authorities of the outbreak, the Sunday Times reported. Dr. Hemantha Herath, Health Coordinator of the IDP camps, told the newspaper, “It is only now that we are getting a regular feedback from the hospital. They have not done in-depth investigations into these cases.”
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United Sri Lanka is the steadfast aim of UNP – Tissa Athanayake, in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Thursday, 16 July 2009, 10:32 GMT]
General Secretary of United National Party (UNP), the main opposition party, Tissa Athanayake, said that the UNP believes in one country with equal rights to all its people, in a press meet held Thursday in Jaffna City Hotel. Tissa Athanayake, accompanied by Dr. Jayalath Jayawardene, UNP parliamentarian and UNP principal candidate in Jaffna Municipal Council (JMC) election, A. S. Sathiyendra, explained the policy of his party to the media. “One of the main functions of the ICRC is family reunion of Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) and Rajapakse’s government’s decision to stop ICRC’s functions and to expel it from the country needs to be vehemently condemned,” Dr. Jayalath Jayawardne said.
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10 IDPs die daily inside barbed wire camps in Vavuniyaa - JVP

[TamilNet, Thursday, 16 July 2009, 03:53 GMT]
The Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) said Wednesday it has been receiving reports that due to scarcity of essential needs such as food, water and medicine, on the average, ten internally displaced people die every day inside the camps located in Vavuniyaa. "These people too are citizens of Sri Lanka. Those who are languishing inside the barbed wire camps are our fellow citizens. We call upon the Government not to forget the fact that they tjere arrived on the invitation of the government. It is disgusting to hear of the way the government treats them now,” said JVP leader Mr.Somawanse Amarasinghe addressing a press briefing Wednesday at the JVP head office in Battaramulla.
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Imprisonment of aid workers violates international law: UN Staff Union

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 15 July 2009, 20:15 GMT]
The Staff Union of the United Nations Secretariat (SUUNS) slammed the Sri Lankan Government for its illegal detainment of two aid workers and urged Secretary General Ban Ki Moon to demand for their release in a statement released Friday. Highlighting Sri Lankas responsibility “under international law to respect independence and work of UN Staff”, the statement labeled the “continuing detention and harassment” of UN staff as a violation of the “international instruments dealing with the privileges, immunities and independence of United Nations officials”.
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Mahanayake announces programme to renovate “destroyed” Buddhist sites in NE

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 14 July 2009, 08:28 GMT]
Malwatte Mahanayake Thera Venerable Tibbotuwawe Siddhartha Sri Sumagalabhidana Thera Sunday announced that a programme is to be launched shortly in the North and East to renovate Buddhist religious sites, according to him, destroyed or damaged during the war.
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Colombo doctors to investigate outbreak of meningitis, encephalitis in Vavuniyaa

[TamilNet, Sunday, 12 July 2009, 17:29 GMT]
Six medical officers from Colombo are scheduled to visit IDP camps which are described as internment camps by human rights agencies in Vavuniya tomorrow to investigate a suspected outbreak of meningitis and encephalitis, reported from the Vavuniyaa General Hospital. Meanwhile the Government Medical Officers Association (GMOA) has charged that a severe shortage of nurses and pharmacists in the Vavuniyaa camps is compounding health problems there.
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Notorious commander appointed Governor of Northern Province

[TamilNet, Sunday, 12 July 2009, 17:05 GMT]
Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa has appointed Chief-of-Staff of the Sri Lanka Army (SLA) Maj. Gen. G.A. Chandrasiri as the new Governor of the Northern Province. Maj. Gen. Chandrasiri was the former chief of the SLA in Jaffna, under whose command Jaffna witnessed hundreds of forced disappearances, extra-judicial killings and other human rights violations in the period from 2006 to 2008. Tamil political circles in Colombo commented that Mr. Rajpaksa, who claims to have crushed the de-facto state of Tamil Eelam, has appointed his military men in key posts in the occupied Tamil homeland to head civil services with a 'colonial mindset'. Earlier, in April, Rajapaksa appointed Chandrasiri as the Competent Authority Officer in charge of resettlement of Tamils from Vanni in alleged barbed-wire 'internment camps' in Vavuniyaa.
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AG to file response to FR petition on “internment “camps

[TamilNet, Saturday, 11 July 2009, 22:01 GMT]
Three member Bench of the Sri Lanka’s Supreme Court Friday directed the Attorney General (AG) to file objections within two weeks in respect of granting leave to proceed, and interim relief to the Petitioners, in a Fundament Rights (FR) Violation petition against the detention of nearly three hundred thousand Vanni IDPs in State controlled "welfare centres" which have been described by human rights activists and organizations as "internment camps," legal sources in Colombo said.
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Vanni doctors forced to give false statement

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 08 July 2009, 17:36 GMT]
5 Tamil doctors being held by the Sri Lankan authorities say they expect to be released, after being paraded to local and international media on Wednesday when they were made to claim that they had exaggerated civilian casualty figures in the final phases of the war at the request of the LTTE. Meanwhile, health workers who have escaped Vanni have slammed the international community for allowing the detainment of the doctors and questioned the validity of their statements in light of the 'precarious position' they face.
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SL parliament extends Emergency for another month

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 08 July 2009, 04:40 GMT]
Sri Lanka’s parliament Tuesday adopted a motion to extend the State of Emergency for another month by a majority of ninety two votes. One hundred and three parliamentarians voted for the motion. Only eleven members of the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) voted against. The Jathika Hela Urumaya (JHU), Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP), Ceylon Workers Congress (CWC) and National Freedom Front (NFF), a splinter group of the JVP voted with ruling United Peoples Freedom Alliance (UPFA).
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Railways Dept rules out sabotage in Yarl Devi fire

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 07 July 2009, 03:32 GMT]
Sri Lanka Railways ruled out sabotage but said it has sustained damages in the region of 25 million rupees due to the fire that broke out Sunday morning in Thaandiku'lam bound Colombo Yarl Devi intercity express train. The fire destroyed two wagons including the canteen.
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Time for diaspora to stand up for homeland Tamils: Father S.J. Emmanuel

[TamilNet, Monday, 06 July 2009, 14:44 GMT]
Former Vicar General of the Catholic diocese of Jaffna, Rev. Dr. S.J. Emmanuel, in an open appeal issued from Germany on Monday urged the diaspora Tamils to hasten to help the Tamils suffering in the island Sri Lanka. "Neither the Tamils who are suffering in silence have the strength to stand up or speak up for themselves nor the few Sinhalese are able to give their voice for the Tamils because these are quickly labelled as non-patriots, if not, traitors. The only people who can help them in some way or other are the Diaspora Tamils," he writes in his first part of the article. The second part will deal with the need to unite and organise the diaspora for further Struggle.
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34 Vanni IDPs die in 3 months due to brain fever

[TamilNet, Monday, 06 July 2009, 11:48 GMT]
Brain fever has been on the increase among Vanni Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) held in internment centres located in Vavuniyaa, according to medical sources in the district hospital. Thirty-four Vanni IDPs of the sixty-four afflicted by brain fever have died in three months. Majority of them who succumbed to brain fever were less than 24 years of age, medical sources said.
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Armed men rob elderly IDP in Vavuniyaa

[TamilNet, Monday, 06 July 2009, 05:41 GMT]
Unidentified armed men arriving on a motor bicycle robbed several thousand rupees worth gold jewellery from an elderly Internally Displaced Person (IDP) who was released from a Sri Lanka Army (SLA) internment camp in Vavuniyaa and staying with his relatives at Veappangku’lam in Vavuniyaa on the pretext of searching his house. The robbery took place Saturday evening when the elderly IDP came to stay with his relative, media reports said.
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Limited passenger bus service via A9 highway

[TamilNet, Sunday, 05 July 2009, 10:00 GMT]
Sri Lanka Defence Ministry is to allow passenger bus service thrice a week via A-9 highway between Vavuniyaa and Jaffna. Five buses would be allowed each day at the start, media reported quoting Defence Ministry sources said. Meanwhile, Sri Lanka armed forced sources said clearing of landmines along A9 highway is nearing completion.
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Fire in Yarl Devi train bound for Thaandiku’lam

[TamilNet, Sunday, 05 July 2009, 09:50 GMT]
A fire broke out onboard Yarl Devi inter-city train bound to Thaandiku'lam in Vavuniyaa district Sunday morning around 10.30 a.m on its way from Anuradhapura to Saliyapura. The blaze damaged at least two compartments of the train including the canteen, sources in Vavuniyaa said.
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School principal shot dead in Vavuniyaa

[TamilNet, Saturday, 04 July 2009, 12:18 GMT]
Unknown armed men shot and killed the principal of Parathipuram Tamil Mixed School and another man while the victims were travelling in a motorbike at Parathipuram in Vavuniyaa Saturday around 3:00 p.m., Police said.
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5000 Vanni IDPs from internment camps moved to Anuradhapura

[TamilNet, Friday, 03 July 2009, 13:23 GMT]
The Sri Lankan military has relocated nearly 5000 Tamil civilians from Vavuniyaa and Cheddiku'lam internment camps and resetteld them in pre dominant Sinhala village Tharmapuram in Anuradhapu on Tuesday and Wednesday, civil sources said. The SL military officials had told the Tamil civilians that they would be re-settled in their native villages in Ki'linochchi or Mullaiththeevu within 14 days, but the Rajapaksa government, at an all party meeting in Colombo on Thursday, said that it needed time to clear the mines before any resettlement.
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Vavuniyaa-Horowopottana road re-opened for public transport

[TamilNet, Friday, 03 July 2009, 03:39 GMT]
The highway between Vavuniyaa and Horowopottana has been re-opened for public transport after several years of closure. Vavuniyaa Government Agent Ms. P. M. Charles said the route is now open for public transport including state and private sector bus services with effect from Wednesday, according to media sources.
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