Resettled families in Jaffna peninsula abandoned by SL government

[TamilNet, Thursday, 16 September 2010, 05:56 GMT]
Non-government Organizations in Jaffna peninsula accuse Sri Lanka government to have abandoned most of the uprooted families resettled in Jaffna peninsula without providing them adequate assistance for rehabilitation. 82,000 uprooted persons had been resettled in Jaffna peninsula so far, according to Jaffna Secretariat statistics. Meanwhile, nearly 100,000 persons uprooted from Valikaamam North High Security Zone of Sri Lanka Army (SLA) twenty years ago continue to stay with their relatives, friends and in camps not allowed by SLA to resettle in their own properties.
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NP Governor visits restricted areas in Vanni

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 15 September 2010, 02:21 GMT]
Northern Province Governor Major Gen. G. A. Chandrasiri accompanied by some Sinhala parliamentarians and Sri Lanka government officials visited Tuesday some places in Vanni where uprooted people have not been allowed to resettle by occupying Sri Lanka Army (SLA). Meanwhile, some influential sections are trying again to shift Northern Provincial Council (NPC) and its offices to Ki’linochchi from Trincomalee, a move which had been suspended by Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa in August, sources in Trincomalee said.
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Gotabaya Rajapaksa in China with military top brass

[TamilNet, Sunday, 12 September 2010, 10:12 GMT]
Gotabaya Rajapaksa, the brother of Sri Lanka President Mahinda Rajapaksa and Sri Lanka Defence Ministry Secretary, left to China Saturday leading a military delegation consisting of the Chiefs of Staff of Sri Lanka Army, Navy and Airforce. China had been one of the mains suppliers of military hardware and expertise during Sri Lanka’s war on Vanni last year.
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‘Take care of symbols’

[TamilNet, Saturday, 11 September 2010, 15:12 GMT]
Tamil Information Centre (TIC), London, has called for a Round Table Discussion on “Postwar Challenges Facing ‘Sri Lanka’s Tamil-Speaking Peoples” on 25 and 26th of this month in London. The discussion is a follow-up of the Zurich gathering held last November. Commenting on the programme a Tamil-speaking social activist in Batticaloa said: “While it is appreciable to work for unity and one voice of the Tamils of the island and to find ways of rebuilding society, livelihood, institutions and political structures for them, symbols of identity that are fundamental to all their regeneration with self-respect should not be compromised. The Tamil-speaking peoples of the island have to shun the identity of ‘Sri Lanka’ that has become a symbol of state oppression ever since the constitutionality of the identity in 1972.”
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Explosion in Vanni SLA camp, 3 soldiers wounded

[TamilNet, Friday, 10 September 2010, 09:25 GMT]
Three soldiers of the Sri Lanka Army were injured in a blast that took place Friday afternoon at SLA 211 headquarters in Vavuniyaa. It was an accidental explosion while soldiers were cleaning a detonator box in the camp, SLA spokesman Major General Ubaya Medawala told media in Colombo.
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‘Tamil Youth Conference 2010’ held in Germany

[TamilNet, Friday, 10 September 2010, 08:11 GMT]
Many diaspora Eezham Tamil youths from European countries participated in the ‘Tamil Youth Conference 2010’ held Saturday in Dusseldorf in Germany with the aim of getting to know talented youths engaged in diverse pursuits and to set up a creative website connecting them. The participants shared their views related to the political situation in their homeland, the miserable life of the people there and the confusion prevailing among expatriate Eezham Tamils. The Conference is the outcome of the first effort to rally the diaspora Eehzam Tamil youths in a meeting without leanings to any particular organization, Sanjeevkanth Luxshumikumar, a digital media artist from Germany and one of the organizers of the event said. It is our intention to hold this conference annually and in a large scale, he added.
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'LLRC lessons advocate permanent subjugation of Tamils'

[TamilNet, Friday, 10 September 2010, 02:30 GMT]
LLRC, the Rajapaksa appointed Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission, is created “neither to learn lessons nor to reconcile but to make Tamils accept and tolerate the crime and cruelty of the Sinhalese and live with repression forever,” says a reader, Sam Thambipillai, in sending a comment on Jayantha Dhanapala’s submission to the LLRC. Colombo’s diplomat Jayantha Dhanapala, who once attempted to contest for the UN Secretary General position, in his submission to the LLRC last month said: “We have learnt a great deal of lessons from the experience of combating one of the most ruthless terrorist groups […] We would be providing something innovative to the international community […] to give some guidance to armies of nation states as to how they should react to such a situation”.
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'India should stop calling Eezham Tamils a minority'

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 07 September 2010, 00:30 GMT]
Eezham Tamils are a nation having historical sovereignty and territory in the island called Sri Lanka. Members of the Indian Establishment should stop humiliating them any further by calling them as ‘minority’. Tamil brethren of Tamil Nadu should be sensitive enough and stop such fundamentally faulty approaches and psyop war of the New Delhi-Chennai-Colombo axis on the historical nation of Eezham Tamils in the island. Edification of Chennai and New Delhi is basic to make the world see the crisis in realistic perspectives. Eezham Tamils, in their casual and social interaction should consciously stop using the recently invented name 'Sri' Lanka of genocidal connotations, when an official Tamil name Ilangkai and another ancient Tamil name Eezham are available to refer to the island, writes TamilNet political commentator in Colombo.
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All island District Government Agents conference in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Sunday, 05 September 2010, 15:27 GMT]
Sri Lanka Public Administration Affairs Ministry held its first all island District Government Agents conference in Jaffna Monday in District Secretaiat hall at 9:00 a.m presided by Sri Lanka Minister of Public Administration, John Seneviratne. Jaffna Government Agent Ms. Imelda Sukumar told Tamilnet that past development activities in the North and future devolpment projects were discussed in the meeting. Allocation of funds for various projects was also considered, the GA said.
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Re-examine claimed safety of refugee returnees, AI appeals to Australia

[TamilNet, Friday, 03 September 2010, 16:35 GMT]
“The Australian government must re-examine its claims that asylum seekers returned to countries they are fleeing from are not subjected to torture and mistreatment,” Madhu Malhorta, Amnesty International’s Deputy Director for Asia said in an appeal to Sri Lanka government Friday calling on it to ensure the safety of three men who have been tortured and jailed following their forced return from Australia where they had sought asylum in 2009. Three Sinhala men, two of them brothers, seeking asylum in Austarlia had been forcibly sent back to Sri Lanka by the Australian government.
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Rajapaksa blames opposition for 'aiding' LTTE

[TamilNet, Thursday, 02 September 2010, 14:33 GMT]
Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa has alleged that "some groups who said they did not have money to fight the war, and signed ceasefire agreements with the LTTE, had money to give the LTTE,” the Sri Lankan state-run paper Dinamina quoted Mr. Rajapaksa as saying in its front page lead story on Thursday.
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Properties of uprooted in Vanni plundered with SLA assistance

[TamilNet, Thursday, 02 September 2010, 05:55 GMT]
Muslim and Sinhala traders from Southern Sri Lanka are actively plundering the properties abandoned when the people of Vanni were forced to leave them during war, with the assistance of Sri Lanka Army (SLA) soldiers occupying Vanni. The traders make huge profits transporting them in vehicles to Vavuniyaa, Anurdapura and Puththa’lam for sale. The plundered goods include iron objects, spare parts dismantled from abandoned vehicles, house fittings and other valuable things. SLA soldiers are given a percentage of the profits made by the traders for allowing them to plunder and transport the goods of the people in Vanni to the South, sources in Vanni said.
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Counterinsurgency, development conquistadors and economic integrators

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 01 September 2010, 10:50 GMT]
Many Eezham Tamils wonder at some recent political developments but they waste their energy in concentrating on individuals. The individuals, whether KP, section of the Transnational Government of Tamil Eelam, others who come out one by one with statements and ‘development’ agenda in support of the KP-line of politics, and the members of the ‘task’ group that executed the sequence are unimportant. Why they are mobilised so and what makes them to take that line of polity are more important.
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1215 uprooted civilians abandoned in Visuvamadu in Vanni - MP

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 01 September 2010, 02:30 GMT]
1215 uprooted civilians from Vanni brought from the camps three months ago in the name of resettlement are held without any help in Visuvamadu area in Mullaiththeevu district, Suresh Premachandran, Tamil National Alliance (TNA) MP, who visited them Monday told media. Mullaiththeevu district Sri Lanka Army (SLA) authorities do not allow them to settle in their own lands in the district and the people abandoned by government authorities and humanitarian organizations are subjected to untold hardships. The families say that they will look after themselves if only they are allowed to settle in their own properties, the MP said.
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Nirupama faces civil society outburst in North

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 31 August 2010, 17:31 GMT]
India provided arms and logistical support to Colombo in the Vanni war. It didn’t take any effort to stop the war. Even after one year of the war, India didn’t act on rehabilitating the incarcerated people, accused members of the confederation of citizens’ forums in Jaffna while meeting the visiting Indian Foreign Secretary Nirupama Menon Rao on Tuesday. Resettlement is a hoodwink in Vanni, said retired Senior Professor S.K. Sitrampalam of the University of Jaffna, expressing the strong sentiments of Eezham Tamils. Army has occupied the Tamil lands and people have strong doubts whether India would be of any help in Tamils getting a political solution, the civil society representatives told the visiting Indian diplomat.
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SLA closes Achchuveali-Tho'ndaimaanaa'ru road again

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 31 August 2010, 05:32 GMT]
Sri Lanka Army (SLA) occupying Jaffna Friday closed Achchuveali-Tho'ndaimaanaa'ru road located at the outskirt of SLA High Security Zone (HSZ) in Valikaamam North for public use causing people to travel long distance spending more time to reach their destinations, sources in Jaffna said. The said road which had been closed fifteen years ago by SLA had been recently opened for public use with the beginning of the annual festivals of Chellach Channithi Murukan temple located on the shores of Tho'ndaimaanaa'ru lagoon.
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80% of resettled families in Batticaloa not paid livelihood assistance

[TamilNet, Monday, 30 August 2010, 05:53 GMT]
Around eighty percent of resettled people in Batticaloa district have not been paid their livelihood assistance of twenty-five thousand rupees. Others were not paid a single cent as livelihood assistance they are entitled at the time of resettlement, according to Batticaloa district Tamil National Alliance (TNA) parliamentarian Pon. Selvarajah.
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Batticaloa Tamils mourn disappearance of 48 Tamils two decades ago

[TamilNet, Sunday, 29 August 2010, 06:26 GMT]
Tamils of several villages in Batticaloa district Friday observed the twenty years’ death anniversary of 48 Tamil people who were reported disappeared after being arrested by the Sri Lanka Army (SLA) on 27th August 1990, with silent procession from Siththaa'ndi Kaa'li Koayil to Siththaa'ndi Murukan Koayil from 9:00 a.m till 11:00 a.m. Relatives of the disappeared participated in the procession with tears. Special prayer was also held in Siththaa'ndi Murukan Temple in remembrance of those “disappeared”.
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Politicising religious reformation

[TamilNet, Saturday, 28 August 2010, 09:02 GMT]
Around 300 goats and countless chickens were sacrificed in a folk ritual on Wednesday at the Kaa’li temple in Munneasvaram, Chilaapam (Chilaw), in the Puththa’lam district of the North Western Province. A group of Buddhist monks marched in protest and when prevented, the angry monks sat on the road and refused to move until the ritual was over. Tension developed in Chilaapam, media reports from Colombo said. The demography of the region is largely made of Sinhalicised Tamils and some surviving pockets of Tamils. A considerable number of Sinhala Buddhists also took part in the folk ritual, Wednesday, and academics wrote on Buddha’s denouncement of animal sacrifice and rituals of Vedic Brahmins. When around 40,000 Tamils were slaughtered in Vanni last year, the Buddhist establishments in the island were either silent or encouraged it.
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Resettled families in Vanni left to suffer in downpour

[TamilNet, Thursday, 26 August 2010, 06:43 GMT]
Rains have been pouring down in Vanni for the last four days with the break of North East Monsoon in Sri Lanka and the resettled families sheltered under makeshift huts without proper roofing are left without any assistance to face the onslaught of the monsoon that will last until the end of December, Non-government Organization (NGO) representatives who visited Vanni said. Promises of constructing houses for the resettled families in Vanni by the Indian government and World Bank are yet to be fulfilled.
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