SLA issues death threat to press owner in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Friday, 28 May 2010, 17:58 GMT]
Sri Lanka Army (SLA) Intelligence Division men issued death threat in person to the owner of a leading printing press in Jaffna as he had printed copies of a Weekly newspaper which was claimed by them to contain articles criticizing the actions of President Mahinda Rajapakse and Deputy Minister Karuna, sources in Jaffna said. The Weekly has been launched with Vanni as its centre of operation. The SLA men had strongly warned the owner saying that this was an attempt to create disturbances among the people again, the sources added.
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Limestone in Valikaamam HSZ sent to Galle in South

[TamilNet, Thursday, 27 May 2010, 16:58 GMT]
Thousands of Southern Sinhalese labourers are engaged in excavating lime stone in the Sri Lanka Amy (SLA) High Security Zone (HSZ) in Valikaamam North where its residents had been evicted by SLA, Jaffna MP, Appathurai Vinayagamoorthy accused in a press meet held in Jaffna Thursday. The excavated limestone is taken to the cement factories in Galle in ships and via A9 road, he further said. Government which does not permit the evicted residents of Valikaamam North to resettle in their own places has freely allowed thousands of Sinhalese labourers to work within the HSZ.
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IIFA showbiz event blamed for promoting ‘paradise of genocide’

[TamilNet, Thursday, 27 May 2010, 16:24 GMT]
As Tamils world over mark one-year of Indian abetted genocidal war against Eezham Tamils in the island of Sri Lanka, the Hindi film industry known as Bollywood and the major Indian conglomerate of trade unions, Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce & Industry (FICCI) are joining hands with Rajapaksa regime in Colombo in staging 11th International Indian Film Academy (IIFA) awards weekend during the first week of June in Colombo. The FICCI, the largest and oldest business conglomerate of India is the flagship organiser of the business event named FICCI-IIFA Global Business Forum, where hundreds of CEOs and business heads from India would be signing various investment contracts and tie-ups in the island on the second day of the celebrity and corporate event.
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Former JVP MP questioned by the CID over meeting with Vanni parents in Colombo

[TamilNet, Thursday, 27 May 2010, 09:43 GMT]
Former JVP Parliamentarian Ramalingam Chandrasekar was questioned by the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) officials and Army Intelligence Personnel soon after he met parents of the disappeared persons from Jaffna at Narayana Mandapam in Grandpass in Colombo District on Wednesday morning.
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SLA occupies 80% of agricultural land in North

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 26 May 2010, 19:50 GMT]
Sri Lanka Army (SLA) occupies around eighty percentage of agricultural land in Vanni and Jaffna peninsula in the name of High Security Zones (HSZs) and releasing this land back to the owners is the prerequisite to any attempt to explore possibilities of agricultural development in the North, representatives of agricultural organizations in Jaffna peninsula told the Deputy Minister of Agriculture, Jegath Pushpakumara, Wednesday in Jaffna Secretariat where he participated in a meeting related to the development activities in the peninsula, sources in Jaffna said.
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NP Governor accuses Jaffna NGOs of malpractice in assisting resettled Vanni families

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 25 May 2010, 16:41 GMT]
Northern Province Governor, Major Gen. G. A. Chandrasiri has directed Jaffna Assistant Commissioner of Local Government (ACLG) to collect the details of assistance given to each person resettled in Jaffna district, accusing the local Non-government Organizations (NGOs) and humanitarian agencies which had provided assistance to the uprooted families of malpractice, sources in Jaffna said. Governor’s accusation against the NGOs and his directive to collect detailed information of the assistance provided by them is the first step to bring the NGOs under government’s control, NGO circles complained.
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Rwandans, Kurds join Tamils commemorating massacre anniversary

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 25 May 2010, 03:38 GMT]
Armenian, Rwandan, Kurdish and the Native American communities joined Northern Californian Tamils in commemorating the first year anniversary of the Mu'l'livaikaal massacre of more than 40,000 Tamils by the Sri Lanka Security forces during the first five months of last year. The event held Saturday between 5:00 p.m. and 7:00 p.m. in Palo Alto California was attended by more than 150 people, organizers of the event said. The attendees wore a decal depicting the National flower of Tamil Eelam (Gloriosa superba), with the words “We Remember” written underneath, according to attendees to the event.
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Is the U.N. complicit in Sri Lankan war crimes, Arbour asks

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 25 May 2010, 02:44 GMT]
Asserting that "the organization's [United Nation's] abandonment of national staff in a conflict zone and its failure to speak up more forcefully about abuses made it "close to complicit" in [Sri Lanka] government atrocities," Louis Arbor, president of the NGO International Crisis Group (ICG) and former United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, "called for an internal review of the U.N.'s conduct during Sri Lanka's bloody 2009 civil war," the popular Foreign Policy magazine reported.
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Boston Globe: Probe War Crimes in Sri Lanka

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 25 May 2010, 02:35 GMT]
Noting that "outside world has received credible accounts of war crimes perpetrated on a large scale by Sri Lanka security forces as well as by the Tigers," during the military offensives by Colombo in the early months of 2009, Boston Globe, in Monday's editorial said that "President Obama, who has drawn criticism for soft-pedaling human rights concerns in Africa, the Middle East, and elsewhere, should insist that Sri Lanka’s government be held accountable for shelling civilians and hospitals and murdering fighters who surrendered on the battlefield."
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Camouflaged ban on Tamil Eelam by New Delhi, Chennai

[TamilNet, Monday, 24 May 2010, 23:07 GMT]
The Government of Tamil Nadu has gazetted a notification by the Indian Central Government's Ministry of Home Affairs, dated 14 May, banning the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) as an 'unlawful association'. The announcement falsely linked 'Tamil Eelam' as threatening the 'sovereignty and territorial integrity of a part of the territory of India'. Questioning when Tamil Eelam became part of Indian territory, Eezham Tamil circles in the diaspora said the notification reflected the guilt related paranoia of New Delhi and Chennai and urged the democratic bodies in the diaspora and the legal activists in Tamil Nadu to address the false interpretation, politically and legally.
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SLA plundered vehicle spare parts in Vanni sold in Anuradhapura

[TamilNet, Monday, 24 May 2010, 19:57 GMT]
Anuradhapura has turned into the main ‘spare parts sales town’ in Sri Lanka as the spare parts of vehicles abandoned in Mu’l’livaaikkaal in Vanni, plundered by Sri Lanka Army (SLA), are being taken to Anuradahapura along A9 road in trucks and vehicles which bring goods to North, according to Suresh Premachandran, Tamil National Alliance (TNA) Jaffna parliamentarian. He further alleged that the spare parts of the vehicles of Vanni civilians systematically plundered by SLA soldiers immediately after the war are kept hidden in bunkers with the collaboration of their officers and that the parts are gradually passed on to Southern Sinhalese and Muslim traders to be sold in Anuradhapura.
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Colombo conducts ‘fake’ conference in Ki’linochchi

[TamilNet, Monday, 24 May 2010, 19:27 GMT]
Northern government department and corporation key officials urgently directed by their superiors to attend a conference Monday in Ki’linochchi in Vanni to discuss resettlement of people uprooted due to war in North were disillusioned to find that the conference failed to address the issues meant, participants in the conference said. The conference, attended by several key ministers including Wimal Weeravansa and Douglas Devananda besides many parliamentarians from the South, revealed the glaring absence of essential matters like allocation of funds for resettlement or definite plans for resettlement, the sources added. Colombo government has enacted another ‘drama’ to show the world that it is able to convene a conference in Ki’linochchi town just as the Liberation Tigers had done in their days, political circles in North said.
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Wife of victim in Channel-4 photo identifies husband

[TamilNet, Monday, 24 May 2010, 16:28 GMT]
The 7-year-old daughter of a 40-year-old victim of Vanni War identified her father from the photos released by Channel-4 last week and published in local papers in Jaffna. She and her mother, who lost her husband and a 2-year-old son, are now sheltered in an orphanage in Jaffna. A humanitarian activist who met the mother told TamilNet that the victim in the photo, kept naked inside a bunker by the Sri Lanka Army, was Harikrishanan Thuraichamy. He was reported missing since April 2009, when he went to Ananthapuram area promising his family to recover their belongings. He was a former LTTE member, but had left the movement and living with his family, according to his wife. Although some friends of Mr. Harikrishnan had told her that his body was seen among LTTE fighters killed, she has not seen any evidence and she still believes her husband is alive in SLA custody.
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SLA permits annual Vattaappazhai Pongkal festival in Mullaiththeevu

[TamilNet, Monday, 24 May 2010, 05:34 GMT]
Sri Lanka Army (SLA) authorities have permitted the annual Pongal festival in the historically famous Amman Koayil located in Vattaappazhai in Mullaiththeevu district to be held Monday but thousands of uprooted civilians from Mullaiththeevu still held in the camps are disinterested in taking part in the Pongal festival as they have been refused permission to resettle in their own places, sources in Vavuniyaa said. The government, however, is making a great show of the festival providing free transport to Vattaappazhai Pongkal festival from Vavuniyaa, the sources added.
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Government planning to bring Sinhalese colonists again to Ma’nalaa’ru in Vanni

[TamilNet, Saturday, 22 May 2010, 16:46 GMT]
Sri Lanka government is accelerating its plans to colonize Ma’nalaa’ru area in Vanni with Sinhalese people and also to bring back the Sinhalese people who had been earlier brought to this area as colonists, some government officers who had visited Ma’nalaa’ru area said. Mines Advisory Group (MAG) and other de-mining organizations are now at work in the above Ma’nalaa’ru area which includes Janakapura, Parakrampura and the traditional Tamil village Othiyamalai. The government has no plans to resettle the ancient Tamil inhabitants of Othiyamalai, the officers said.
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Taking stock on the first anniversary of Internationally abetted genocide

[TamilNet, Saturday, 22 May 2010, 14:07 GMT]
The Tamil struggle for independence, one of the longest running struggles of Asia, which has progressed through the Colonial phase and the World Wars, through Cold-War era and through the period of War on Terrorism and the times of economic conquest, now stands at the juncture of a paradigm shift, one-year after the end of asymmetric, but largely conventional Eezham War IV. If Eezham Tamil Nation is to advance successfully forward from where it stands, it needs to adopt its own set of paradigms, capable of not only defeating opposing maneuvers of the Sri Lankan state and the abettors from outside, but also powerful in addressing the future from a broad perspective, rising above the classical dialectic approach.
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SLA refuses to permit TNA parliamentarians into Menik Farm camp in Vavuniyaa

[TamilNet, Saturday, 22 May 2010, 12:05 GMT]
Sri Lanka Army (SLA) officials in Menik Farm Camp in Vavuniyaa did not permit Saturday a group of Tamil National Alliance (TNA) parliamentarians to visit the said detention centre and see the Vanni civilians held, sources in Vavuniyaa said. The SLA officials insisted on prior permission from Ministry of Defence Secretary, Gothabaya Rajapakse and stood firm in their decision though the MPP tried to argue their way into the centre, the sources added.
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Peiris US bound amid war crime calls in US Congress

[TamilNet, Friday, 21 May 2010, 23:30 GMT]
Sri Lanka’s External Affairs Minister G.L.Peiris is to visit the United States next week for talks with the US government, and is expected to meet US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton during his stay in US, Colombo electronic media reported quoting External Affairs Ministry sources. The hurriedly arranged visit occurs in the wake of a week of concerted calls by several human rights organizations for independent investigations into Sri Lanka war crimes. Congressmen David Price (D-4th District North Carolina) and Danny K Davis (D-7th District Illinois) added their voices for expeditious action by the international community to probe into war crimes in Sri Lanka. Three more Congresspersons made floor statements referring to traditional Tamil homeland and Tamils as a community under threat, and on the condition of Tamil refugees.
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Jaffna SLA blocks efforts to reopen schools, government buildings closed due to war in North

[TamilNet, Friday, 21 May 2010, 17:05 GMT]
A conference is to be held Monday in Ki’linochchi to discuss the reopening of the schools in Vanni which remain closed due to war as the government of Sri Lanka shows that it is trying to restore normalcy in the North, sources in Ki’linochchi said. Meanwhile, the Ministries of Public Administration and Defence are to conduct a conference in Colombo soon to explore ways to reopen the schools and government buildings that are being occupied in the North for ten to twenty years. Jaffna SLA Commander, however, is said to be hindering this move as the opening of the schools and government buildings will call for the resettlement of the people uprooted from Valikaamam North, sources Jaffna said.
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106 schools closed, 60000 students deprived of education in north

[TamilNet, Friday, 21 May 2010, 08:13 GMT]
At least sixty thousand children are deprived of their education after the war that concluded last year due to the closure of 106 schools in Ki'linochchi, Mullaiththeevu, Thu'nukkaai, Vavuniyaa North and Mannaar. Nearly 62,944 uprooted persons from Vanni are still detained in internment camps in Vavuniyaa, parliamentarian of the main opposition United National Party (UNP) Thursday claimed at a media briefing held in Colombo.
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