EPDP, SLA, confuse public, lottery-fraud arrested in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Friday, 07 January 2011, 03:31 GMT]
An alleged EPDP member from Vavuniyaa faced the brunt of public anger in Jaffna as he was said to be moving in suspicious ways and was selling fake lottery tickets in Martin Road, Jaffna on Thursday. SL Police, on information from public, arrested him. He is said to have confessed his membership with the EPDP. There was no response from the side of the EPDP. Meanwhile, EPDP leader and SL minister Douglas Devananda in the SL parliament on Tuesday said that he didn’t want to embarrass the SL government internationally by raising the plight of the fear-engulfed people in Jaffna. In the meantime, the public in Jaffna senses EPDP and SLA indirectly passing blame on each other over the systematic infliction of terror by manipulative forces controlling the both.
Full story >>

Abductions shock Mannaar, relatives of victim confront white van

[TamilNet, Thursday, 06 January 2011, 19:22 GMT]
Sinhala-speaking armed men in white-van rushed through Mannaar abducting four males, one of them a Muslim youth, Jaharil Jazeel. The episode resulted in a confrontation between the relatives of Mr. Jazeel and the abductors, exposing the level of top-hierarchy involvement of Sri Lankan defense authorities in the chain of abductions. Sri Lanka Navy, Sri Lanka Army and Police guarding the Mannaar Bridge withdrew their security, allowing the abductors to proceed southwards after seeing a piece of paper produced by the men right in front of the victim’s relatives, who were chasing the white van in four three-wheelers. The armed men, confronted by Jazeel’s relatives opted to take away the mother of Jazeel in their vehicle only to force her off their vehicle at gunpoint at Vangkaalai Junction after crossing the Mannaar bridge on their way to South along Mannaar – Medawachiya Road.
Full story >>

Muthaliph Farook sworn in as new MP of Vanni district

[TamilNet, Thursday, 06 January 2011, 11:45 GMT]
Attorney-at-Law Muthaliph Farook from Mannaar Wednesday afternoon took oaths as the new parliamentarian of the Vanni electoral district filling the vacancy created with the sudden demise of Noordeen Mashoor. The Speaker Chamal Rajapakse in parliament administered oaths and allegiance to the new MP who is from the Sri Lanka Muslim Congress (SLMC), sources said.
Full story >>

Father of five reported missing in Koappaay

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 05 January 2011, 03:31 GMT]
Mahalingam Amirtharajah, a father of five, has been reported missing since January 1, according to a complaint lodged by his sister with the Jaffna regional secretariat of the Human Rights Commission of Sri Lanka (HRCSL) and the Koappaay Police. Amalaraj left for home after meeting his friends in a public place around 10:00 p.m. on January 1st, but failed to reach home. Amirtharajah's relatives fear that he was abducted while he was returning, according to the complaint.
Full story >>

'Experimenting with Eezham Tamils on how to cheat trauma'

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 05 January 2011, 00:02 GMT]
First, deliberately and knowingly give a blow of trauma to a nation of people, without worrying about the outcome. What comes later is later. Then you know the trauma will backfire. So, make the nation to cheat its trauma by advocating religious observations, cricket, sports and entertainment. They don’t make much difference from drugs and alcohol, except that they bring in lesser physical health problems and lesser ‘law and order’ problems to the oppressors. But a trauma shouldn’t be cheated. Seeking justice and working for justice are the truly meaningful ways for a nation to treat its trauma, says a mental-health therapist from Vanni in a note sent to TamilNet on Tuesday.
Full story >>

46 local council members to be chosen in Mannar elections

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 04 January 2011, 03:02 GMT]
The Tamil National Alliance (TNA) is to contest all the five local authorities in the Mannaar electoral district in the forthcoming election, according to Vanni district TNA parliamentarian Selvam Adaikalanathan. Elections to local authorities are to be held after a lapse of thirty five years in the district to elect 46 members to an Urban Council and the four Pradeshya Sabas in the district.
Full story >>

Fifth Anniversary of Trincomalee Students execution

[TamilNet, Sunday, 02 January 2011, 01:18 GMT]
As relatives of the five Trincomalee students, who were shot dead execution style by Sri Lanka soldiers on January 2nd 2006, prepare to remember the fifth anniversary and mourn the death of their children, Dr. Kasipillai Manoharan, the father of Ragihar, one of the students killed, appealed to international rights groups including the UN Human Rights Commission to investigate the crime and to provide justice to his lost son and his friends who were killed. Information, recently made public, from the US embassy in Colombo, which has highlighted that ruling Rajapakse family sanctioned extra-judicial killings in the NorthEast, adds further obligation to international human rights watchdogs to take steps to advocate independent international investigations into war crimes.
Full story >>

Mobile phone saves 30 abductees in Vanni from being taken to South

[TamilNet, Saturday, 01 January 2011, 22:34 GMT]
A 20-year-old student, Gajeevan Puvanendran, who was being abducted by men in green uniform in a vehicle Saturday morning around 5:30 in Ki'linochchi, alerted his parents and relatives through SMS and phone conversation that he was being taken away on A9 highway towards South. Later, Mr. Gajeevan was saved with around 4 others in Vavuniyaa. The Sri Lankan Police has not revealed the details of the abductors or other abductees. Informed sources close to the police in Vavuniyaa told TamilNet that a squad operated by Sri Lankan military was taking away the abductees to South. However, latest information from Vavuniyaa from reliable sources said there were around 30 young boys and at least one of them was taken by an intelligence squad.
Full story >>

2011 Legal Imperatives

[TamilNet, Saturday, 01 January 2011, 17:54 GMT]
Vigorous advocacy of Tamils rights inside the halls of political power and in the streets of the West by the increasingly active expatriate Tamil youths portends a hopeful and optimistic future to Tamils battered by inaction of the international community and subjected to continued acts of cultural, physical genocide carried out with impunity by Colombo. As humanity steps into the dawn of the next decade, the emergence of organized youth groups trained in international law and sharing knowledge across State borders to advance the prospects of prosecuting alleged Sri Lanka's war-criminals and to bring justice to Tamils, stands as an important example of the political progress, grounded in the moral code of community responsibility, diaspora youths have made since the Mullaiththeevu massacre of May 2009.
Full story >>

New Vanni parliamentarian to be sworn

[TamilNet, Saturday, 01 January 2011, 16:03 GMT]
Attorney-at-Law Muthaliph Farook of the Sri Lanka Muslim Congress (SLMC) is to be sworn in as the new parliamentarian for the Vanni electoral district in the Northern Province on January 5. He polled second highest preferential votes in the last general election held on April 8, 2010.
Full story >>

Killed Tamil youth of postal department was an environmentalist

[TamilNet, Saturday, 01 January 2011, 00:30 GMT]
Ketheeswaran Thevarajah, who was working in a post office in Vadamaraadchi and was killed Friday night was an environmentalist, who was protesting to scooping of sand in Vadamaraadchi that was causing environmental damages. Sometimes back, he was dispatching photographs through Facebook, showing environmental damage caused by sand-scooping in his locality. A feedback on his contribution to environmental protection has been sent to TamilNet by a reader who is a relative of him and who has seen the news of his assassination. Media sources in Jaffna confirmed that Mr. Ketheeswaran has been actively engaged in the protests against sand excavation and was instrumental in the protests held in Kudaththanai. He has also provided in-depth reports to local media on the environmental damage inflicted on his village.
Full story >>

Jaffna marred with killings, abductions on New Year eve

[TamilNet, Friday, 31 December 2010, 18:19 GMT]
Armed men who entered the house of a 28-year-old youth who had displaced from Vanni to Vadamaraadchi recently shot him causing serious injuries Friday night. The victim, Nadarasa Ketheeswaran, a worker at the post office in Point Pedro, succumbed to his injuries after being transferred from Manthikai hospital to Jaffna Teaching Hospital for further treatment. The shooting took place while the victim was residing with relatives in Kudaththanai East of Vadamaraadchi, Jaffna. Meanwhile, 48-year-old Yoganathan Pushpathevi, a widow with six children was abducted Friday night by armed men who came in a white van. Her son living in Italy had visited her a few days ago, residents said.
Full story >>

Why Sri Lanka keeps Tamil areas insecure and unstable - paper

[TamilNet, Thursday, 30 December 2010, 15:58 GMT]
Sri Lanka is actively using paramilitary groups in a campaign of terror in Tamil areas, alongside the military’s own harassment of business and civil society activity, to “actively deny the conditions – physical security and societal stability - necessary for a fully fledged post-conflict revival,” the Tamil Guardian newspaper argued in an online comment Thursday. Sri Lanka is opposed to societal revival in the Tamil areas [because] with economic progress and the restoration of normalcy will undoubtedly come renewed Tamil demands for political rights, including greater freedom from Colombo's rule and stronger links with the "globalised" economy and community, the Tamil Guardian argues.
Full story >>

Tamil, Sinhala detainees clash in Vavuniyaa remand prison

[TamilNet, Thursday, 30 December 2010, 02:15 GMT]
Two were injured in a clash that erupted between detainees in the Vavuniyaa remand prison Tuesday around 5:30 p.m. when Tamil detainees assaulted a Mannaar-based Christian priest and a long-time humanitarian worker, who was recently held in remand over alleged charges that he had sexually abused Tamil girls displaced due to the Vanni war. Altercation ensued as a group of Sinhala detainees rushed in defense of the priest and started assaulting their Tamil detainees with pointed weapons and blades. The alleged sexual abuse of under-aged girls are said to have taken in a Home for Destitutes run by the priest at Murungkan in Mannaar district, legal sources in Mannaar said.
Full story >>

'Only China and Pakistan could prod New Delhi'

[TamilNet, Thursday, 30 December 2010, 00:58 GMT]
Paying tribute at the memorial for the IPKF that killed more than 6000 Eezham Tamils in the late 1980s, the visiting Defence Secretary of the New Delhi establishment offered training programme for 1400 personnel of the genocidal military of Sri Lanka in the Indian defence academies. Indian Express on Sunday reported that a key outcome of Russian president recently meeting New Delhi’s prime minister was India helping Colombo’s nuclear power generation, to counter Chinese power hold in South Asia. Meanwhile, the thrust of a recent article by India’s former envoy in UK, Kuldip Nayar implies that rather than the merit of the national question of Eezham Tamils attracting Indian attention, only the involvement of China and Pakistan may prod it to do something.
Full story >>

Terror campaign in Jaffna: abducted youth tortured and beheaded

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 29 December 2010, 21:27 GMT]
Mahendran Thiruvarudchelvam, known as Chelvam, abducted 9 days ago was tortured and beheaded as evidenced by his remains reaching Jaffna Teaching Hospital. Even though initial reports said that he had been abducted for a ransom of 8 million, his background and prevailing terror campaign in the SL-military-occupied Jaffna point to deeper motives behind his killing, human rights activists in Jaffna said. Mr. Chelvam, 28-year-old, and father of a child, was living in Vanni to the end of the war, spent some time in the internment camp and was released for resettlement. He returned to his native place Meesaalai North near Kanakan-pu'liyadi and started doing business as a vehicle dealer. The former residents of Vanni, whether they are in captivity or released, are viewed by the occupying military and paramilitary as objects for exploitation and then extermination.
Full story >>

Tsunami remembrance day held in Vadamaraadchi

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 29 December 2010, 01:12 GMT]
The sixth year anniversary of the tsunami remembrance event was held in different parts of Jaffna district, including Vadamaraadchi and Vadamaraadchi east independent of the Colombo-centric organized celebrations, civil society sources in Jaffna said. Uduththu'rai burial grounds in Vadamaraadchi east contained majority of tsunami burials, and grieving relatives held an emotional ceremony organized by the Uduththu'rai Fisheries Union at that site.
Full story >>

SL minister threatens Mannaar UC not to restrict southern hawkers

[TamilNet, Saturday, 25 December 2010, 09:26 GMT]
The Sri Lankan minister for Industry and Commerce in Rajapaksa's cabinet, Rishad Bathiyutheen has warned the Urban Council of Mannaar not to collect taxes from southern pavement hawkers who have invaded the streets of Mannaar, causing reactions from the local business community and the public. Instead, the minister who is also from Mannaar has deployed his gang to collect money from the Sinhala hawkers. The daily collection of such taxes is around two hundred thousand rupees, UC sources said.
Full story >>

Sinhala encroachment unabated in Batticaloa

[TamilNet, Friday, 24 December 2010, 10:36 GMT]
Encroachment of lands belonging to Tamil people goes unabated in several villages in Batticaloa district despite assurances given by M.L.A.M.Hisbullah, a deputy minister for women affairs who also holds the post of chairman of the Batticaloa District Development and Coordinating Committee, and Deputy Minister for Resettlement Vinayagamoorthy Muralitharan that they would take immediate action, Tamil National Alliance (TNA) MP P. Selvarasa charged at the District Development and Coordination (DDC) meeting, sources in Batticaloa Thursday said.
Full story >>

Ultimate subjugation by making Tamils lie to themselves

[TamilNet, Thursday, 23 December 2010, 22:51 GMT]
“Humanitarian operation will not stop until the painful memories of terrorism and all thoughts of separatism are removed from people's hearts. You pass out today to contribute to this noble humanitarian operation”, Mahinda Rajapaksa, who believes in “winning the hearts and minds” of Tamils by military terrorism of state, told the passing out cadets at Diyatalawa Military Academy Tuesday. The ultimate point of subjugation comes when Tamils are made to lie to themselves. After Rajapaksa demonstrating that through the captured doctors of the Vanni war, another example comes in Government Agent Imelda Sugumar ‘evidencing’ before LLRC. More than felt towards such victims or Rajapaksa, the Tamil anger is in fact felt towards the external elements that have brought out the situation and now either talk about ‘home grown’ solution or back Rajapaksa through their bankers.
Full story >>