Court orders remand for 45 suspects arrested under PTA, ER

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 10 November 2009, 10:17 GMT]
Colombo Chief Magistrate Nishantha Hapuarachchi Monday ordered remand till November 12 for forty-five suspects, majority of them Tamils, arrested by the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) under the Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA) and Emergency Regulations (ER) for allegedly being involved in terrorist activities in the hill country in the central province. They were produced in court after being interrogated by the CID held under the detention order of the Defence Ministry. Some of the suspects are Muslims and Sinhalese, sources in Colombo said.
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Government has to get the support of the South first to solve Tamil ethnic issue – Vasudeva Nanayakkara

[TamilNet, Sunday, 08 November 2009, 06:28 GMT]
Senior Advisor to Sri Lanka President Mahinda Rajapakse and a veteran Sinhalese politician, Vasudeva Nanayakkara, said that the government has to get the support of the people in the South of the country to solve the problems of the Tamils, in response to questions raised by the members of Jaffna Traders’ Association (JTA) in a meeting held Saturday evening in the JTA building in Jaffna. The members had asked as to why it was not possible to carry out the Supreme Court directive to resettle the IDPs from Valikaamam North in their own places now occupied by Sri Lanka Army while the Supreme Court order to demerge Northern and Eastern provinces had been executed overnight.
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Vasudeva Nanayakkara to deliver speech titled “Tamils and Future” in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Friday, 06 November 2009, 18:20 GMT]
Vasudeva Nanayakkara, a senior Sinhalese politician and the senior advisor to President Mahintha Rajapakse, who arrived in Jaffna Friday is to deliver a speech titled “Tamils and Future” Saturday at Changkaraththai Hindu Youths’ Hall in Vaddukkoadai, sources in Jaffna said. Meanwhile, Vasudeva Nanayakkara met Jaffna district High Court Magistrate R. T. Vicknarajah in Jaffna Court Complex Friday where the magistrate stressed on the importance of resettling Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) from Valikaamam North evicted nearly 19 years ago by Sri Lanka Army (SLA) in order to establish High Security Zones (HSZ) in the said area, the sources added.
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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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Absurd logic of seeking ‘moderates’ amid a genocide - paper

[TamilNet, Saturday, 31 October 2009, 15:20 GMT]
While many international actors are coming to realise that the problem in Sri Lanka is in fact rooted in the character of the Sinhala-dominated state, the London-based policy nexus which theorised, argued for, and solicited international consensus around Colombo’s military slaughter is still insisting that their strategy was essentially right, the Tamil Guardian newspaper said this week. “These handmaidens of Sri Lanka’s bloodbath will be proven disastrously wrong again. But not before the Tamils endure much more suffering and further bloodletting.”
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Sarath Fonseka’s stand on relations with Tamils, Muslims should be made public – Mano Ganeshan

[TamilNet, Saturday, 24 October 2009, 18:32 GMT]
“The persons who try to bring in former Sri Lanka Army (SLA) Commander, Sarath Fonseka as a prospective presidential candidate should first publicize his stand on his relations with the Tamils and Muslims of the country,” Mano Gnaeshan, Colombo district parliamentarian and the leader of Democratic Peoples’ Front (DPF) told media in Colombo after a discussion held with Ranil Wickremasinghe, the leader of the opposition and United National Party Friday evening, sources in Colombo said.. “We will not write ‘blank cheques’ in favour of any major political party candidate in the Presidential election,” he said. “We do not have any personal hard feelings either towards President Mahinda Rajapakse or Sarath Fonseka; whatever difference of opinion that exists is purely political,” he further said.
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Stop settling Sinhalese in Tamil, Muslim owned land - Sampanthan

[TamilNet, Saturday, 24 October 2009, 17:21 GMT]
Rajavarothaiam Sampanthan, parliamentary group leader of the Tamil National Alliance (TNA), speaking on an adjournment submitted by him in Sri Lanka's parliament Friday, said that "encroachment of lands belonging to Tamils and Muslims and State has been on going in the eastern province on large scale with the support of government, and amid intimidation of minority communities by government security forces, and this should be stopped immediately," parliamentary sources in Colombo said.
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Addressing ambiguity of Right to Self-Determination

[TamilNet, Sunday, 18 October 2009, 00:26 GMT]
The international system is erratic in justifying right to self-determination (RSD) of nations set against right to security of states. All areas of discretion were interpreted against, in the case of Eezham Tamils. As the militant-created de facto state that has been making a case for RSD all this time doesn’t exist in its territory today, democratic political move should create a new de facto situation. RSD can be invoked when peoples of more than one state are involved, but Mr Karunanidhi nullified the opportunity. The option now is not asking for RSD, but exercising it and mandating democratic de facto situation or situations. This is why spelling out the goal of independent and sovereign Tamil Eelam is paramount for transnational governance. Elected country councils enhance meeting the task by structurally involving ‘peoples of many states.’
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Colombo squandaring chance for reconciliation - Economist

[TamilNet, Friday, 16 October 2009, 03:34 GMT]
Noting that, while the improving economy and successful recent elections may increase Colombo's reluctance to deal with the Tamil internment issue in expeditious manner, the Economist in its latest edition said, "[t]he damage being done to Sri Lanka’s international image, however, may last longer. The Tamil diaspora will keep alive the calls for investigation of alleged war-crimes by both sides in the climactic campaign. And the EU has to decide whether to withdraw Sri Lanka’s special trade privileges on human-rights grounds. If, as seems likely, it does, the country’s garment exporters will suffer great damage, and employment will consequently be hit," and added that "the government, its reputation already tarnished by the manner of its final victory, risks squandering the richest prize that victory offers: the chance for national reconciliation."
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Postal bags sent in passenger buses from Jaffna to Vavuniyaa

[TamilNet, Thursday, 15 October 2009, 17:54 GMT]
After a long time postal bags from Jaffna were sent in Sri Lanka Transport Board (SLTB) passenger buses to Vavuniyaa through A9 road after being inspected by Sri Lanka Army (SLN) and police in the check post located in Jaffna Sinhalese Maha Viththiyaalyam precinct, sources in Jaffna said. The postal bags transported with SLA and police guards will be handed over to postal authorities in Vavuniyaa who will send them to other places in the country, the sources added
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UNICEF urged to explore direct assistance to IDP education

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 14 October 2009, 22:01 GMT]
UNICEF has recently announced an emergency programme to assist Colombo’s Ministry of Education implementing Accelerated Learning Programme (ALP) to an estimated number of 85,000 IDP children. According to a UNICEF advertisement, seeking experts to work with Colombo’s ministry, the programme will begin from January 2010 and 2000 teachers are to be trained for this purpose. Over the years the so-called national education in the island has been thoroughly Sinhalicised with scheming perfection, so that education of Tamils is now completely ‘directed’ by Sinhalese from concept and management to curriculum and textbooks. The ‘core curriculum’ in the mind of Colombo is structural and cultural genocide, commented academic circles in the island, adding that the UN agency should explore ways of handing over the education of Tamils to Tamils.
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Sinhalese to be settled in Muslim village in Ampaa'rai district

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 14 October 2009, 12:37 GMT]
The General Secretary of Sri Lanka Muslim Congress (SLMC) and parliamentarian M. T. Hassan has requested Ampaa'rai Government Agent to stop appropriation of lands in the Muslim village in Kuduvil by Sri Lanka Wild Life Department, sources in Ampaa'rai said. He further said that Muslim people in the area view this act as a step taken by the government to settle Sinhalese in the lands appropriated.
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Sinhalese Buddhist priest appointed as archaeological curator for Jaffna

[TamilNet, Saturday, 10 October 2009, 12:45 GMT]
Sri Lanka President Mahinda Rajapakse has appointed Rev. Warapitiya Rahula Thero as the curator for archaeological artifacts in Jaffna peninsula in an attempt to fabricate evidence to show the Sinhalese masses and the outer world that traces of Buddhism in Jaffna peninsula are exclusively Sinhalese, sources in Jaffna said. Rev. Rahula Thero will be working from an office that is to be soon built in the ‘Old Park’ located next to Jaffna Secretariat. Jaffna Museum which had lain neglected for more than 30 years and looted during successive Sri Lanka Army (SLA) offensives on the peninsula is to be relocated to the new archaeological department in Old Park where Rev. Rahula Thero will go into action following in the footsteps of the successive Sinhalese regimes which have tried to rewrite the history of Sri Lanka in favour of Sinhalese Buddhists, the sources added.
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Tension grips Tamil business community in Colombo

[TamilNet, Saturday, 10 October 2009, 11:54 GMT]
Tension has gripped the Tamil business community in Colombo and its suburbs after Sri Lanka Army (SLA) soldiers called on them to register their assets with the local authorities. The soldiers had called on the community with a printed form which has to be filled with every miniature detail from the type of enterprise, to assets such as vehicles, etc, members of the family, relatives and employees. The Tamil business community is perturbed over this new regulation since they have already registered themselves with the relevant police divisions.
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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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SLA collects particulars only from Tamil traders in Colombo

[TamilNet, Saturday, 10 October 2009, 09:32 GMT]
Sri Lanka Army (SLA) soldiers have been distributing forms in Sinhalese language only to Tamil traders in the city of Colombo since Thursday calling for particulars for the purpose of special registration, according to an urgent letter sent by Deputy Minister, P. Rathakrishnan to Prime Minister, R. Wickremanayake, requesting him to instruct SLA to explain as to why such details are being collected from Tamil traders only, sources in Colombo said.
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Indian strategic analyst writes on 'lost leverage'

[TamilNet, Friday, 09 October 2009, 11:58 GMT]
“Today, India stands more marginalized than ever in Sri Lanka. Its natural constituency—the Tamils—feels not only betrayed, but also looks at India as a colluder in the bloodbath. India already had alienated the Sinhalese majority in the 1980s,” writes Professor Brahma Chellaney of the Centre for Policy Research, New Delhi, in a forthright article appeared in Forbes, Friday. Welcoming his admissions and responding to him, Tamil circles said that who ever now addresses the national aspirations of Eezham Tamils, holds the key to the region of South India-Sri Lanka- Maldives, but India is yet to learn the lesson and may continue forfeiting leverage even with its own people, by blunting the national question.
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Eastern Province CM unable to stop Sinhalese colonization – Ariyanenthiran

[TamilNet, Friday, 09 October 2009, 08:41 GMT]
Batticaloa district Tamil National Alliance (TNA), P. Ariyanenthiran who was able to visit his constituency after three years Friday said that Sinhalese families from the South have been colonized in Choaliyaamadu village in Paddiruppu Regional Secretariat division in Batticaloa district. He told media that the Chief Minister of Eastern Province, though a Tamil, cannot stop traditional home lands of Tamils being colonized with Sinhalese families.
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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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Sri Lanka's internment camps for Tamils: experience of an inmate

[TamilNet, Monday, 05 October 2009, 09:37 GMT]
South Asia has never witnessed such a large scale, state-organized crime as one committed on Eezham Tamils by the government of Sri Lanka. Perhaps the world has never witnessed hitherto that such a crime of internment camps for civilians could be initiated collectively by all the powers of the world and the UN, and could be left like this without anyone being able to do anything about it. A civilian woman who was a captive in the Zone 3 of the internment camp of Menik Farm for four months, and managed to come out by ‘other means’ a month ago, writes on her experience in the camp – an indelible shame for the so-called civilised world.
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