Woman swallows cynanide, dies in hospital

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 22 September 2009, 20:26 GMT]
A Tamil female who swallowed cyanide capsule when a team of police officials from the Galle District Crime Division attempted to arrest her died after being admitted to the hospital in Vavuniyaa on Tuesday early morning.
Full story >>

'Tamil heritage for sale in Colombo'

[TamilNet, Monday, 21 September 2009, 22:37 GMT]
Valuable antiquities plundered from the archaeological sites and monuments in Vanni by the occupying forces of Sri Lanka are now sold in the antiquarian market of Colombo, reports reaching from Colombo said. Before the war, the LTTE was maintaining a museum in Vanni, with a large collection of archaeological material including Buddhist artefacts.
Full story >>

Vaddukkoaddai and Thimphu

[TamilNet, Saturday, 19 September 2009, 13:04 GMT]
Calling for the creation of independent and sovereign Tamil Eelam, based on Vaddukkoadai Resolution (VR) was the last spontaneous and definite mandate by Eezham Tamils in a totally free and democratic atmosphere. As the need for democratic political organisation unfolds afresh, Tamils have to take up the thread directly from the VR. The Thimphu principles and all the other formulas put forward subsequently under the duress of powers, and failed as negotiation models, do not get precedence over the VR as bases for political organization. Mu’l’livaaykkaal was not the real defeat. The defeat comes only when Tamils are made to politically denounce their heart-felt aspirations. The diaspora needs to peruse and correct course of any proposal that stops just at self-determination. In UN charter and in international law it is just an empty phrase that doesn’t protect nations or ethnicities.
Full story >>

Court directs CID to expedite inquiry against detained Tamil civilians

[TamilNet, Saturday, 19 September 2009, 04:08 GMT]
Colombo Chief Magistrate Nishantha Hapuarachchi Friday directed the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) to expedite the investigation into the cases against twenty-seven Tamil civilians arrested in connection with alleged terrorist activities and to report to the court on the progress made so far, on September 29. The order was made following Defence Counsel claiming that the Terrorist Investigation Division (TID) was acting unfairly in its investigations.
Full story >>

Tamil political prisoners in Colombo on hunger strike

[TamilNet, Thursday, 17 September 2009, 16:05 GMT]
Tamil political prisoners arrested on suspicion under Emergency Regulations (ER) and Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA), languishing in Magazine Prison and Colombo Remand Prison (CPR) for many years without being produced in the courts, launched a hunger strike from 6:00 a.m Thursday as their requests placed in previous hunger strikes had not been taken into consideration despite promises by legal authorities that their cases will be taken for trial in two months time, sources in Colombo said. The fasting prisoners said the President of Sri Lanka has granted general amnesty to the soldiers who had deserted their posts during the war, in the past few months and hence it would be an easy matter for the President to use his executive powers at least to order to take up our cases immediately for trial as we had only been arrested on suspicion.
Full story >>

Tamil national aspirations, TNA and transnational governance

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 16 September 2009, 23:36 GMT]
The Tamil National Alliance (TNA) or any other political party claiming that they represent Tamils have no right to proclaim that they have moved away from the 1977 mandate for independence and sovereignty of the Eezham Tamil nation, to satisfy India, Mahinda Rajapaksa or any other power. They may negotiate but without dropping the fundamentals, until any acceptable formula is freshly mandated by all Tamils including those who are now in the diaspora. Meanwhile, the emerging novel concept of transnational governance will be misled if it is orientated merely with an idea of negotiation. It is not just a negotiation platform. There is no need to show Tamils have ‘democratically’ dropped their aspiration just because some powers want it as a pre-requisite for negotiation.
Full story >>

Journalist Tissainayagam files appeal against jail sentence

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 16 September 2009, 15:23 GMT]
Senior journalist S. Tissainayagam, through his lawyer, filed an appeal in the Court of Appeal Tuesday seeking to set aside the conviction and the sentence imposed on him by the Colombo High Court on August 31, 2009. Tissainayagam was convicted for blaming the Government of Sri Lanka, inciting racial hatred and for having monetary dealings with the LTTE, a terrorist organization prohibited by the State, according to the prosecution led by the Attorney General.
Full story >>

M K Narayanan declares war on Tamil diaspora

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 16 September 2009, 11:54 GMT]
Addressing Director Generals and Inspector Generals of Police Monday, India’s National Security Advisor and one of the architects of Indian Establishment’s policy towards Eezham Tamils, M K Narayanan, told them of the need to keep watch against Tamil diaspora reviving the LTTE and cautioned them to be prepared for any eventuality. “The funding lines of the LTTE are still intact and there is always a possibility that disgruntled elements in the Tamil diaspora across the globe could get together to help the terror outfit regroup and rearm,” said M K Narayanan, according to The Economic Times, Tuesday. His fear stems from his own policy 'haunting him back,' commented Tamil circles in the diaspora.
Full story >>

Court further remands 4 returnees from Fiji

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 16 September 2009, 11:09 GMT]
Colombo Chief Magistrate Nishantha Hapuarachchi Tuesday ordered further remand till September 22 for three Tamils and a Sinhalese who were arrested by the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) officials at the Katunayake International Airport on their return from Fiji islands, rejecting their bail applications. CID told court said that the suspects had immigrated to the Fiji Islands for employment and the Fiji Islands authority had deported them.
Full story >>

Colombo's paranoid secrecy

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 15 September 2009, 16:20 GMT]
"Why must the military be in control of the camps, why not civilian agencies? Why can't visitors enter the camps? Why are journalists barred? Why are international agencies kept out? Why is it taking the courts so long to make a straightforward order to allow members of parliament to visit the camps?" and quoting Mangala Samaraweera, "I can walk into any prison at will and meet any criminal, but I am not allowed to meet these people held in detention for no reason," Prof Kumar David, in an opinion column in Sunday's Lakbima, writes, "[t]he reasons offered for this paranoid secrecy varied from the need to hide human rights violations to calculations relating to the upcoming elections. I think it will be some time before the real reason comes seeping out."
Full story >>

8 SL media organizations urge President to release journalist Tissanayagam

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 15 September 2009, 08:07 GMT]
Eight media organizations comprising Sri Lanka Working Journalists Association (SLWJA), Editors’ Guild of Sri Lanka (EGSL), Free Media Movement (FMM), Sri Lanka Tamil Journalists Alliance (SLTJA), Sri Lanka Muslim Media Forum (SLMMF), Federation of Media Employees’ Trade Union (FMETU), South Asian Free Media Association (SAFMA) and Sri Lanka Newspaper Publishers’ Association (SLNPA) Monday unanimously decided to request President Mahinda Rajapakse to release senior journalist Mr.J.S.Tissanayagam using his executive powers, sources in Colombo said. Mr.Tissanayagam was recently sentenced to twenty years rigorous imprisonment under the Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA).
Full story >>

Rajapakses' incipient personality cult would shame a Chinese communist - Guardian

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 15 September 2009, 03:20 GMT]
In the second article in two days, UK's Guardian, warned Monday that by making Tamils feel newly repressed Sri Lanka is sowing seeds of future rebellian, noting that "in the months that have followed [the military victory] there has been little magnanimity, let alone reconciliation. Tens of thousands of Tamil civilians are still being kept in camps surrounded by barbed wire." The article further said that "Colombo's streets are littered with so many pictures of president Mahinda Rajapaksa and his brothers that the incipient personality cult would shame a Chinese communist. The triumphalism in Colombo means those who dare to question the government are deemed Tiger collaborators, terrorist sympathisers or Tamil secessionists."
Full story >>

Police arrest 5 Tamil, Muslim civilians in Puththa’lam

[TamilNet, Monday, 14 September 2009, 10:29 GMT]
Puththa'lam Police Sunday arrested six civilians including three Tamils and two Muslims who were staying in a house at Thampapanni in Puththa’lam police division. Police said they rushed to the site and arrested them on reports that a group of unidentified persons from Murungkkan in Mannaar district were staying in Thampapanni.
Full story >>

Rivers of sewege cascade through tents in Menik farm - Guardian

[TamilNet, Monday, 14 September 2009, 01:55 GMT]
Cataloguing emerging stories of families destroyed by war and separated through internment in Sri Lanka's fortified camps, UK Guardian's Sunday story describes feeble attempts by the Government of Sri Lanka to resettle refugees criticized as "chaotic and underfunded." Malnutrition-related complications have resulted in increased deaths, the paper notes, and adds that doctors in Vavuniyaa have warned of "impending disaster if conditions do not improve." Humanitarian workers recently allowed in to Menik Farm had criticized "persistent water shortage," and described precarious health, inhumane conditions as "heavy rain sent rivers of sewage cascading through tents and tin sheds," the paper said.
Full story >>

UN ‘war crimes witness’ expelled - report

[TamilNet, Saturday, 12 September 2009, 12:28 GMT]
A senior UN diplomat was expelled from Sri Lanka in July for providing details to the international community of mass killings of civilians during the final battles against the Tamil Tigers, The Guardian newspaper in Britain reported Saturday. Peter Mackay, an Australian citizen, was given two weeks to leave the country for providing detailed rebuttals of Sri Lankan government’s "wartime propaganda." The diplomat is seen as a legal timebomb by the Sri Lankan government as he could personally take the stand and testify that the army shelled non-combatants – action considered to be a war crime under international law, the paper said.
Full story >>

BBC: UN patience wears thin in Sri Lanka

[TamilNet, Friday, 11 September 2009, 12:59 GMT]
The United Nations says it cannot continue to indefinitely fund the sprawling, overcrowded and militarized camp in which Sri Lanka has interned hundreds of thousands of Tamil civilians. Speaking to the BBC, the UN's Sri Lanka chief, Neil Buhne, said people should be allowed to leave the barbed wire-ringed Manik Farm camp. Mr Buhne also criticised Sri Lanka’s denial of access for the International Red Cross to 10,000 Tamils whom the government calls LTTE suspects. Meanwhile the UN says it is extremely concerned for two staff members arrested by Sri Lankan authorities in June, being amid reports they were mistreated during the early days of their detention.
Full story >>

"Sri Lanka, stop" says Le Monde

[TamilNet, Friday, 11 September 2009, 11:44 GMT]
"After winning the war, the Sri Lankan regime is in the process of losing the peace. Following the historic, but bloody and distasteful victory, against the armed struggle of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), the Sri Lanka's President Mahinda Rajapaksa could be magnanimous and reach out to the Tamil minority and open the way for national reconciliation. But Rajapakse has chosen another path, the path of domination...Under the tents of the refugee camps tomorrow's Tigers may already be rising to mount a future rebellion," warned France's popular daily, Le Monde in Thursday editorial.
Full story >>

Emergency extended for another month, JVP walks out

[TamilNet, Friday, 11 September 2009, 05:19 GMT]
Sri Lanka’s parliament Thursday evening approved the motion to extend the State of Emergency for another year by a majority of eighty-seven votes. One hundred parliamentarians of the ruling United People’s Freedom Alliance (UPFA) and its constituent parties voted for the motion. Thirteen parliamentarians of the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) voted against. The main opposition United National Party (UNP) parliamentarians were not present in the house during the debate, parliamentary sources said.
Full story >>

Remove SLA camps, HSZ, checkpoints from NE - Sampanthan

[TamilNet, Friday, 11 September 2009, 05:19 GMT]
R. Sampanthan, parliamentary group leader of the Tamil National Alliance (TNA), told parliament Thursday that the government could not cite any reason for the delay in resettling hundreds of thousands of internally displaced Tamils in their own places in Vanni region. "High Security Zones (HSZs) should be removed from the north and east. Sri Lanka Army (SLA) camps and check points should be dismantled immediately to restore normalcy in the provinces," Mr.Sampanthan said while speaking in parliament Thursday opposing the motion moved by the Government of Sri Lanka to extend the State of Emergency for another month.
Full story >>

Western inaction the building blocks of Chinese vassal state - Former Australian Diplomat

[TamilNet, Friday, 11 September 2009, 00:22 GMT]
Nations operating behind the Sri Lankan Governments’ manipulation of the post 9-11 global climate in equating 'Tamil and terrorist' continue to ignore their humanitarian obligations to the point of complicity accused former Australian diplomat Bruce Haigh, referring to the imprisonment of 300,000 Tamil refugees in government camps. Speaking at a forum held at The University of Sydney last week, Haigh described the actions of the Sri Lankan Government as one of “pure vindictiveness…towards people who are totally dispossessed and totally powerless”, before warning that the island may become “a vassal state of China.. not averse to carrying out acts of terror and in the future that may be directed towards India in ways to be determined by the Chinese".
Full story >>