Colombo denies visa extension to AP's Sri Lanka bureau chief

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 22 July 2009, 00:17 GMT]
Associated Press reported Tuesday that AP's bureau chief in Sri Lanka, Ravi Nessman, left Sri Lanka Monday after Colombo refused to extend Nessman's journalist visa. "We find this failure to renew Ravi's visa disturbing," John Daniszewski, AP's senior managing editor for international news, was quoted as saying in media reports. Colombo reports said that Nessman broke news of private U.N. reports outlining civilian death tolls, and also revealed the "first word of a government document from January outlining a plan to keep hundreds of thousands of displaced" Tamil civilians in the camps for up to three years.
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Colombo should end the farce, free doctors - New York Times

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 21 July 2009, 17:43 GMT]
In a devastatingly incriminating article on Sri Lanka's conduct of war and the holding of 300,000 Tamil civilians in internment camps, New York Times in an op-ed piece Tuesday said, the doctors who "worked heroically to save lives and alert the world to the humanitarian disaster endured by civilians trapped in the fighting," should be freed. Also, noting that "[t]he army was indiscriminately launching artillery shells and air strikes into mixed areas of insurgents and innocents and the Tigers shot at people who tried to escape," the paper added, "Sri Lankan government now risks losing the peace with its approach toward ethnic Tamils displaced by the conflict. Colombo needs to alter course if the country is to begin overcoming years of animosity and avoid having old hatreds and current antipathy turn into the next Tamil rebellion."
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Air of martial triumph unbefitting while controversy surrounds Tamil civilian deaths - NY Times

[TamilNet, Sunday, 19 July 2009, 16:07 GMT]
Noting that "[t]he Tamil minority has suffered discrimination and violence at the hands of various Sinhalese-dominated governments through the decades. Tamils have sought, first peacefully, then violently, the right to a measure of self-rule in Tamil-dominated areas," the New York Times in a Sunday article said, "[m]any Sri Lankans see these soldiers as heroes, but given the controversy that remains over how many Tamil civilians were killed in the last weeks of the fighting, some people find the air of martial triumph unseemly."
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Dissuade India from backing Rights violator Sri Lanka, Boston Globe tells Clinton

[TamilNet, Saturday, 18 July 2009, 12:19 GMT]
"When it comes to regional issues, Clinton should make the case that the expanding US-Indian relationship gives Indian leaders more strategic flexibility. They can stop trying to match their Chinese counterparts in backing regimes, such as those in Burma and Sri Lanka, that have committed gross human-rights abuses against their own people. If a shared respect for democratic values forms the foundation for the burgeoning US-India partnership, Indian leaders should be able to heed any such counsel from Clinton," a Saturday editorial in Boston Globe said.
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Court refuses to withdraw arrest order on Eastern PC Minister

[TamilNet, Thursday, 16 July 2009, 03:45 GMT]
Kalmunai Magistrate, N. M. M. Abdullah, Tuesday, refused to withdraw the arrest order he passed on Eastern Provincial Minister Thuraiappah Navaratnarajah and some of his escorts for alleged assault on a Muslim civilian Sunday, legal sources in Kalmunai said.
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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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Time for silence is over - New York Times

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 15 July 2009, 15:41 GMT]
New York times in an editorial published Wednesday said that "[t]he [Sri Lanka] government's strict control on visits to the [internment] camps has also raised suspicions that it may be trying to block any investigation into possible government abuses committed in the last months of the war," and added, "[m]ost [donor countries and international organizations] have kept quiet so far about the Tamils' plight, evidently fearful that criticizing conditions in the camps could get them thrown out of the camps. The time for silence is over. The best way to help the Tamils is by demanding their freedom and an end to their long ordeal."
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Tamil civilian reported missing in Kinniya

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 14 July 2009, 12:20 GMT]
A Tamil civilian, Sivasegaram Panchalingam, 35, a resident of Kinniya in Trincomalee district, has been reported missing since Monday morning after he left for work, according to a complaint lodged with the Kinniya Police by his wife.
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Court orders Police to arrest Eastern PC minister in assault case

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 14 July 2009, 11:28 GMT]
Kalmunai Magistrate Mr.N.M.Abdulla, Monday, ordered the Crime Division of the Kalmunai Police to arrest and produce a provincial minister and his associates who were alleged to have been involved in an altercation with a Muslim civilian, in courts on July 27, legal sources said. Mr.Thuraiappah Navaratnarajah is the Minister of Agriculture and Livestock Development of the Eastern Provincial Council (EPC).
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Amnesty calls for war crimes probe after doctors paraded

[TamilNet, Saturday, 11 July 2009, 00:29 GMT]
Amnesty International Friday called for “a systematic and independent investigation of allegations of war crimes” and said such an investigation “must include confidential interviews with witnesses - most of whom are currently detained in government internment camps.” Responding to Sri Lanka’s parading of five Tamil doctors this week in which the men retracted accounts of mass civilians casualties they had issued amid a Sri Lankan government offensive, Amnesty pointed out that “the Sri Lankan authorities have a long history of extracting confessions by force and compelling detainees to give media interviews that support the government's position.”
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SL government establishes Coast Guard Department

[TamilNet, Friday, 10 July 2009, 14:00 GMT]
The Sri Lankan Parliament Thursday approved the bill to set up a Coast Guard Department (CGD) under the Ministry of Defence, Public Security and Law and Order replacing the Coast Guard Unit which operated under the Ministry of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources. The bill was passed with amendments.
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The Times calls for world boycott of Sri Lanka over detainees

[TamilNet, Friday, 10 July 2009, 11:59 GMT]
Expressing outrage at Sri Lanka’s treatment of Tamil detainees, The Times of London called Friday for the world to boycott the island until the detainees are released. “Sri Lanka wants no witnesses to what is now being done in these modern concentration camps. … None of [the IMF] money should be paid until independent aid agencies are guaranteed access to the Tamil camps and until Sri Lanka starts to release those detained. Other world bodies — the Commonwealth, the United Nations and even world cricketing organisations — should boycott Colombo until reconciliation begins,” the paper said in its editorial.
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‘1,400 dying each week in Manik Farm camp’ – The Times

[TamilNet, Friday, 10 July 2009, 03:37 GMT]
About 1,400 people are dying every week at the giant Manik Farm internment camp set up in Sri Lanka to detain Tamil refugees from the nation’s bloody civil war, senior international aid sources have told The Times. The shocking toll lends credence to allegations that the Government, which has termed the internment sites “welfare villages”, has actually constructed concentration camps to house 300,000 people, the paper said. Most of the deaths are the result of water-borne diseases, particularly diarrhoea, a senior relief worker told The Times on condition of anonymity.
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Sri Lanka restricts aid visas, equates its camps with Italy’s

[TamilNet, Friday, 10 July 2009, 01:39 GMT]
Sri Lanka’s Disaster Management and Human Rights Minister, Mahinda Samarasinghe this week drew parallels between his government’s running of barbed-wire ringed militarized camps in which 300,000 Tamils are held with Italy’s management of camps for survivors of the L’Aquila earthquake. The state-owned Daily News also quoted Mr. Samarasinghe as saying Sri Lanka “would welcome all [foreign] help it can get if relevant organizations would fall in line with the national agenda.” On Thursday, the minister said future visa applications for foreign aid workers will be granted only if their work “could not be carried out by locals.”
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Navaali St. Peter’s Church victims remembered

[TamilNet, Thursday, 09 July 2009, 17:37 GMT]
More than a hundred family members and friends gathered in front of Navaali St. Peter’s Church in Jaffna in remembrance of the 141 civilians killed and 347 seriously injured when Sri Lanka Air Force (SLAF) bombed the church on 9 July 1995 where people had sought protection during the Sri Lanka government offensive on Jaffna, sources in Jaffna said. A boy who had been a year old when his father was killed in the Navaali Church bombing garlanded the memorial statue erected in front of Navaali St. Peter’s Church Thursday moving the people gathered to tears, the sources added.
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Sri Lanka orders ICRC to reduce operations

[TamilNet, Thursday, 09 July 2009, 11:05 GMT]
The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said Thursday it had been ordered by Sri Lanka to scale down relief operations. As a result, the ICRC said it was withdrawing expatriate staff from the battle-scarred northeast, where it has been helping civilian war victims, AFP reported. The ICRC has had a strained relationship with the Sri Lankan government which accused the Geneva-based charity of inciting panic over civilian deaths, AFP added. As a first step, the ICRC will pull out of the Eastern Province, where rights abuses by government forces and allied paramilitaries are continuing.
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Do not weaken the goals and direction of Eelam struggle: Father S.J. Emmanuel

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 08 July 2009, 18:02 GMT]
"Let us not betray the struggle nor its goals as evolved, formulated and consolidated by the sacrifice of many thousands of combatants and civilians under the leadership of the LTTE," says Rev. Dr. S.J. Emmanuel, the former Vicar General of the Catholic diocese of Jaffna, in the second part of the open appeal to the Eelam Tamil diaspora. "Let the change of phase in the struggle from the last militant-cum-political phase to a political and international phase, not in any way weaken or water down the goals and directions of the struggle."
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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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Indian High Commissioner on pulse reading mission in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 07 July 2009, 15:10 GMT]
Indian High Commissioner to Sri Lanka, Mr. Alok Prasad, arrived at Palaali Military Airport Tuesday morning accompanied by his deputy and political wing head and held several meetings in Jaffna with the representatives of academic circles, political parties, interreligious associations and civil organizations in Jaffna peninsula in an effort to read the pulse of the people of the peninsula, sources in Jaffna said. “The Sinhalese people in Sri Lanka have faith only on China while the Tamils had absolute faith on India which had committed a historical blunder by betraying the Tamils in Sri Lanka,” one of the civil society representative participant said, commenting on Alok Prasad’s visit to Jaffna.
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Unclaimed 14 Vanni IDPs corpses to be buried at state cost

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 07 July 2009, 03:12 GMT]
Corpses of fourteen displaced Vanni Tamil civilians including three children brought from Puthumaathth’alan in Mullaiththeevu district two months ago to Anuradhapura Teaching Hospital are to be given a common burial at State costs as none had come forward to identify or to claim them, according to a decision taken by the hospital authority Sunday.
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