SLN, EPDP intimidate LLRC witnesses in Jaffna islets

[TamilNet, Sunday, 14 November 2010, 10:57 GMT]
Members of the Sri Lanka Navy (SLN) Intelligence Unit and of the Eealam People’s Democratic Party (EPDP) Sunday intimidated many potential witnesses who were planning to appear before the Lesson Learnt & Reconciliation Commission (LLRC) during its sessions in the SLN controlled islets of Jaffna, persons present at the sessions said. Some government officials too are alleged to have assisted the intimidators. A press reporter who had filmed a man intimidating one of complainants had threatened the reporter with death and when this was brought to the attention of the head of LLRC with the assistance of the officials of American and Norway officials present at the site, the man was arrested by the police who recorded his statement and let him free, the sources added.
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US, Norwegian Embassy officials observe LLRC proceedings in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Sunday, 14 November 2010, 07:05 GMT]
In the context of international media agencies being not permitted to enter Jaffna, officials of the Embassies of America and Norway in Sri Lanka are in Jaffna observing the proceedings of the Lesson Learnt & Reconciliation Commission (LLRC) in Jaffna peninsula at various places. The complaints made to LLRC by many parents about the disappearance of their daughters after arrest by Sri Lanka Army (SLA) in Vanni and Oamanthai during the last days of the war are directly observed with interest and recorded by the officials of American and Norway Embassies, the sources added. In the meantime, three leading Human Rights groups have slammed LLRC accusing Colombo's commission of failing to “meet basic international standards for independent and impartial inquiries.”
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Colombo reinstates visa to Al Jazeera TV crew

[TamilNet, Saturday, 13 November 2010, 18:21 GMT]
Sri Lanka’s President Mahinda Rajapakse Saturday instructed the Immigration and Emigration Department to issue visas to a media group of Al-Jazeera television to cover his swearing-in event for a second term on November 19, Colombo electronic media reported quoting Presidential Secretariat sources.
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24th Anniversary of the massacre of 320 Tamils in Batticaloa remembered

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 10 November 2010, 16:32 GMT]
The massacre of 320 innocent Tamils of Pullumalai in Batticaloa district on 10.11.1986 by Sri Lanka Army (SLA) and Sinhala thugs was remembered Wednesday by the people of Batticaloa district. The SLA soldiers and the Sinhala thugs who brutally massacred the 320 Tamils were not arrested during the United National Party (UNP) government then and the present United People’s Freedom Alliance (UPFA) too has failed to take action on them or to pay compensation for the affected or find the disappeared persons, sources in Batticaloa said. Complaints made by the victims’ family members to Sri Lanka President’s Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Committee (LLRC) recently in Chengkaladi Secretariat were not registered, the sources added.
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SLA, police protection to Jaffna GA Imelda Sukumar

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 10 November 2010, 11:24 GMT]
Sri Lanka Defence Ministry has ordered protection to Ms. Imelda Sukumar, Jaffna Government Agent (GA) in response to complaint made by her to the ministry of continuous threat to her life through phone calls, sources in Jaffna said. Her residence in the Old Park in front of Jaffna Government Secretariat is being guarded by SLA from Wednesday morning while her office is provided with police protection, the sources added.
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AGA alleged of collecting money to trace missing persons

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 10 November 2010, 05:06 GMT]
Sri Lanka Police Tuesday said a government official in the rank of the post of Assistant Government Agent (AGA) is under interrogation for alleged role in collecting money from the people of northern province promising to trace their disappeared relatives in the last leg of the war in Vanni region.
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Rights groups flay LLRC, say whitewashes War Crimes

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 10 November 2010, 04:17 GMT]
International Crisis Group, Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, the three premier human rights watchdogs, today slammed Sri Lanka’s reconciliation commission (LLRC) accusing the commission of failing to “meet basic international standards for independent and impartial inquiries,” and for "proceeding against a backdrop of government failure to address impunity and continuing human rights abuses.” The Rights groups further pointedly attacked the island's legal system saying, “Sri Lanka’s government and justice system cannot and will not uphold the rule of law and respect basic rights.”
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SLA occupation of school in Poonakari affects students

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 09 November 2010, 17:38 GMT]
More than a hundred students of Vigneswara Viththiyaalayam in Poonakari in Jaffna have to walk nearly ten km to attend schools as their school is occupied by Sri Lanka Army (SLA) which had converted the school as its base, Ki’linochchi Education officials said. The same situation prevails in Vanni too where many schools are occupied by SLA and the related authorities had done nothing to enable the schools to function, they added. Namal Rajapaksa, the son of Sri Lanka President Mahinda Rajapaksa and parliamentarian had been recently visiting schools in Vanni laying foundation stones and planting trees in the schools but nothing had followed his campaign to restore the schools to normalcy, parents in Vanni said.
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SLA forced to engage soldiers in civil work in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 09 November 2010, 17:18 GMT]
Sri Lanka Army (SLA) authorities in Jaffna are forced to engage soldiers in civil work to stop them from deserting the army and because they are unable to allocate military duties for the thousands of soldiers in the North, sources in Jaffna said. Hundreds of soldiers have been deployed in renovation and cleaning work while some of them are employed in food stalls and hair dressing saloons. The soldiers, particularly those in Vanni, due to malaria and forced to be in deserted places are reluctant to serve there, a SLA officer said. Many of them have failed to return after vacation, he added. Most of the soldiers suffer from fatigue and a sense of frustration, sources in Jaffna said.
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Sarvodaya officials in North accused of swindle

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 09 November 2010, 08:47 GMT]
The farmers among the resettled families in Vanni accuse the officials of Sarvodaya for having sold them inferior quality seeds at a high price making huge profits for themselves, sources in Vanni said. The Sarvodaya officials buying black grams and other grains whole sale in Colombo market at low prices sell them in packets as quality seeds at high prices, the sources added. Meanwhile, the agricultural implements issued to the resettled people in Vanni are found to be of poor quality and unsuitable for use in Vanni, the sources said. The people of Vanni already rendered destitute by the war on Vanni are further cheated by unscrupulous men in organizations like Sarvodaya, the sources in Vanni said.
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PTF insists NGOs in North to engage only in construction of houses

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 09 November 2010, 08:19 GMT]
The Secretary of the President’s Task Force (PTF) in Sri Lanka, S. P. Divaratne, in an urgent circular to the Government Agents in the North instructed them not to entertain any new proposals of projects submitted by the Non-government Organizations (NGOs) functioning in the North but to insist on them to concentrate on housing projects in the war affected Vanni instead, sources in Jaffna said. Amidst accusations that Sri Lanka government is reluctant to accept the Indian government’s offer to build 50,000 houses in Vanni the PTF insisting on NGOs to only engage in constructing houses in Vanni is seen as a ploy to deflect India’s presence in Vanni, NGO circles in Vanni said.
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4 suicides daily in Vanni: psycho-social consultant

[TamilNet, Sunday, 07 November 2010, 09:41 GMT]
An increase in suicides is reported in the one time war zones in the Northern Province and an average of four people attempt to commit suicide daily, according to the Sunday leader weekly in its November 07 edition quoting a psycho-social consultant from the Vanni, Dr. Thayalini Thiagarajah. “Many people in the North are still highly traumatized. People are suffering from post traumatic stress disorder, depression, acute stress disorder, and other mental diseases,” she said.
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Rajapaksa fears arrest in UK: Times of India

[TamilNet, Friday, 05 November 2010, 01:06 GMT]
Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa's scheduled visit to UK has been called off by him fearing arrest in UK for his alleged war crimes under British law, the Times of India reported Friday. SL Foreign Minister G L Peiris was despatched to reconnoitre last month, the paper said, adding that certain Tamil organisations were planning to move court for Mr. Rajapaksa's arrest. Mahinda Rajapaksa is also the Commander-in-Chief of the Sri Lankan armed forces. Meanwhile, Eezham Tamil political activists allege that the war crimes in the island took place with the full blessings of the Indian Establishment.
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TamilNet wartime correspondent from Vanni reaches a free country

[TamilNet, Thursday, 04 November 2010, 22:13 GMT]
Living incognito since May 2009, the TamilNet chief correspondent who reported from Vanni during the war, reached a free country this week. He was just 24 when he joined TamilNet. His knowledge in English was just basic. He was neither a member nor an associate of the LTTE. The free working space he had in Vanni was based only on an understanding about the political outlook of TamilNet towards the national cause of Eezham Tamils. But what he achieved goes into history of war journalism. He did a marvellous job on the ‘war without witnesses’, which major international media establishments couldn’t do or didn’t want to do. His safe passage to a free country was achieved by international civil society infrastructure. Many organisations, individuals and progressive Sinhalese helped him in his passage.
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Colombo schemes Sinhalicisation of Batticaloa

[TamilNet, Thursday, 04 November 2010, 02:13 GMT]
Following the end of war in Vanni last year, the Colombo government has taken over three thousand acres private land in Eastern Province in seven Tamil Divisional Secretariat areas for the purpose of setting up new Sri Lanka Army (SLA) camps, colonizing the traditional Tamil homeland with Sinhala people and for contracting the land to external actors for commercial exploitation, civil society circles in Batticaloa said. Some of the private lands taken over, rich with resources, are to be given on long term lease to entrepreneurs from South involving Chinese and Iranian assistance, the sources added.
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War affected women in North exploited by SL ministry agents

[TamilNet, Sunday, 31 October 2010, 06:04 GMT]
Sri Lanka government ministries affected by the slump in garment exports due to the loss of GSP Plus face an acute shortage of workers in the garment industries in the South. The workers, mostly women, have left due to drastic pay cuts. The ministries now attempt to lure war affected young women in the North to work in the garment factories in the South at much lower salary. In this context, two groups of young women from Thellippazhai and Uduvil Divisional Secretariat areas in Jaffna have been taken to Colombo Thursday by the agents of some ministries, sources in Jaffna said. Meanwhile, an attempt to entice some war affected young women in Ki’linochchi in Vanni with employment by a company in Kandy with the intention of misusing them had been stopped with the timely intervention of local social activists.
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Malaysian Tamils protest Indian PM inaugurating their township

[TamilNet, Friday, 29 October 2010, 18:25 GMT]
Around 200 Malaysians gathered Wednesday to protest Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh inaugurating ‘Little India’ in Brickfields, Malaysia, were dispersed when police arrested key leaders, Free Malaysia Today reported Thursday. The protestors questioned the rationale of naming the area ‘Little India’ when most traders doing business there for the past three centuries were Tamils. The protestors were also unhappy about Malaysian government choosing Manmohan Singh to preside over the launch. Manmohan Singh was least concerned about Tamil welfare, “Look at what happened in Sri Lanka. The Tamils were massacred by the Sri Lankan army but he was very quiet about it. The Sri Lankan army also attacked Tamil fishermen in Rameswaram (India) but Manmohan was mum about it as well,” M S Arjunan, a Malaysian Tamil leader said.
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NP Governor retracts sudden transfer of Ki’linochchi Director of Education

[TamilNet, Friday, 29 October 2010, 05:59 GMT]
The education officials and principals of schools in Ki’linochchi district abstained from duties Wednesday in protest against the sudden transfer order to K. Kurukularajah, Zonal Director of Education in Ki’linochchi, by Northern Province Governor, Major. Gen. G. A. Chandarasiri. The governor, however, said that the transfer order has been immediately cancelled in a meeting he convened in Vavuniyaa Thursday, sources in Vavuniyaa said. The governor had also claimed that he had nothing to do with the sudden transfer order to K. Kurukularaja. Meanwhile, the protestors in Ki’linochchi said that Chandrasiri acts more like a military commander in performing his duties than as the governor of Northern Province. He had been the Sri Lanka Army (SLA) Commander of Jaffna before being appointed as governor. Tamil National Alliance (TNA) too had joined in the Wednesday protest.
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Controversy over ICRC employees giving tractors to Sinhala people in North

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 27 October 2010, 08:43 GMT]
The Governor of Northern Province, Major Gen. G. A. Chandrasiri, the former Sri Lanka Army (SLA) Commander of Jaffna district, has ordered SLA intelligence officers to probe into the allegation that ICRC employees in North had issued some of the two-wheel land master vehicles meant for the war affected farmers in the North to Sinhala men, sources in Jaffna said. But it is alleged that the Governor himself had instructed the employees to give the vehicles to Sinhala men. Meanwhile, the Governor is said to be very upset about photos appearing in various local and international websites and media showing the Chief of ICRC in the North shedding tears in the vicinity of a refugee camp and the inquiry launched by him is a but ploy to get hold of the persons who had sent the said photos to the media, the sources added.
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Sinhala fishermen invade Mannaar assisted by SLA

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 27 October 2010, 08:13 GMT]
Sinhala fishermen from South Sri Lanka are allowed by Sri Lanka Army (SLA) occupying Mannaar district to fish in Mu’l’likku’lam reservoir located in the area where local residents uprooted during war are not permitted by SLA to resettle, sources in Mannaar said. Hundreds of Sinhala fishermen from South with six cooler vehicles stay in Mu’l’likku’lam area and drain the tank dry of fish which they take to the South. Brigadier Nisanka Ranawana, the Commander of SLA 61 Division in Mannaar, is alleged to be the person who is instrumental in allowing the Sinhala fishermen to fish in Mannaar, the sources added. The sale of the catch from Mannaar sold in South brings quite a large amount of profit in the venture.
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