Thousands attend Heroes day remembrance at Excel Centre, London

[TamilNet, Friday, 27 November 2009, 15:42 GMT]
Over 50,000 British Tamils gathered at the Tamil National Remembrance Day held in the Excel exhibition centre. Specially designed interior props and the lighting resembled the “Maveerar Thuyilum Illam” Graves of fallen heroes. British Tamils carrying red roses, Gloriosa lilies (Kaarthikaippoo: Tamil Eelam national flower) and lamps, are filing into the main venue, at the Excel Centre in East London, where large cut-outs of Tamil Eelam were displayed on either side of the stage.
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Nearly 3000 IDPs from Jaffna released

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 25 November 2009, 20:54 GMT]
Jaffna Government Agent (GA), K. Ganesh said that 3,117 persons of 983 families from Jaffna district who had been held in the camps in Vavuniyaa and Kodikaamam Raamaavil camps have been released Tuesday. He further said that 445 persons of 425 families brought to Jaffna and held in Kodikaamam Raamaavil camp were sent to their own places in Jaffna district Tuesday.
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Another batch of IDPs brought to Jaffna, held in Duraiappa Stadium

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 25 November 2009, 12:04 GMT]
Despite Jaffna Government Agent’s (GA) recent announcement that all Jaffna IDPs held in Vavuniyaa camps had been brought to Jaffna, a group of them were brought to Jaffna Tuesday night and held in Duraiappah Stadium, Jaffna Secretariat sources said. Sri Lanka Army (SLA) had refused permission for many Jaffna IDPs to enter Jaffna claiming that they were involved in ‘terrorist’ activities. No instructions have been issued by the Sri Lankan Defence Ministry about where the IDPs being held in the Stadium are to be sent to, the sources added.
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Credentials of IC challenged while widespread rape by SLA alleged in Vavuniyaa

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 24 November 2009, 17:24 GMT]
Sri Lanka Army (SLA) intelligence officers operating in the internment camps of Vanni have been allegedly involved in several rape cases during the past months. At least three cases of young victims, aged 14, 15 and 16, appeared in front of Vavuniyaa District Judge in October. SLA soldiers have also raped a 14-year-old mentally retarded Tamil girl inside the Vavuniyaa hospital.
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New Indian High Commissioner for Sri Lanka assumes duties

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 24 November 2009, 12:45 GMT]
Ashok K. Kantha, assumed duties on 9th November as the new Indian High Commissioner for Sri Lanka in place of Alok Prasad who has been appointed Deputy Defence Advisor in the Indian Foreign Ministry under Chief Defence Advisor Mr. M. K. Narayanan. The new High Commissioner has been serving as the Indian High Commissioner for Malyasia from April 2007 until 2009 November before being appointed to Sri Lanka.
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A group of IDPs in Vavuniyaa camp to be taken to Ki’linochchi

[TamilNet, Monday, 23 November 2009, 19:10 GMT]
A batch of Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) from Ki’linochchi district is to be taken from Vavvuniyaa camp to Ki’linochchi Maha Viththiyaalayam on 30th November in the first stage of resettling Vanni IDPs in their own places, sources in Vavuniyaa said. The IDPs who are to be resettled in nine Village Officers divisions located east of A9 road in Ki’linochchi will be first lodged in the Maha Viththiyalam, the sources added. Meanwhile, Northern Province Governor Major Gen. G. A. Chandrasiri has directed the Government Agent (GA) to take action to enable shops to function in all the areas of Ki’linochchi district.
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SLA in Jaffna refuses entry to 1500 Vanni IDPs

[TamilNet, Monday, 23 November 2009, 07:29 GMT]
1500 Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) from Vavuniyaa camps brought to Jaffna Friday claiming that they are from Jaffna peninsula are now being held in the abandoned Raamaavil camp in Kodikaamam as Sri Lanka Army (SLA) authorities in Jaffna refuse them permission to be settled in Jaffna. Most of these IDPs are not from Jaffna but residents of Mullaiththeevu and Ki’linochchi districts in Vanni and it appears that they will be held permanently in Raamaavil camp, Thenmaraadchi Divisional Secretariat sources said.
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Colombo announces new phase of 'IDP management'

[TamilNet, Sunday, 22 November 2009, 00:55 GMT]
Sri Lankan president Mahinda Rajapaksa’s brother and advisor Basil Rajapaksa MP on Saturday announced that the Tamils held in the internment camps of Vavuniyaa would be free, starting from December 01, to go and live wherever they want to or to choose whether they want to continue to remain inside the camps. Tamil sources in Vavuniyaa view the announcement with scepticism describing it as an 'election gimmick' while expressing fear of increased disappearances and militarisation of the Tamil homeland.
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'Future bleak, but do not give up,' veteran Marxist reviewed

[TamilNet, Saturday, 21 November 2009, 21:19 GMT]
“Fifty years of ethnic cleansing have wiped out whole generations who knew any sort of peace, and made cohabitation with the Sinhalese people virtually impossible,” says veteran Marxist A.Sivanandan on the political future of the island of Sri Lanka in an interview to the New Left Review 60, November-December 2009. The 87 years old ideologue, who in his younger days “had no sense at all of being a Tamil” while living in the south, and who now feels “not only for the Tamils but also for the Sinhalese people,” further said: “The Sinhala elite has transformed the country into a counter-insurgency state like Colombia, in which repression, torture, imprisonment without trial and disappeared people are institutionally embedded. I don’t think anything now can be done from above, let alone from the debased self-interests of the ‘international community’.”
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Vanni Government employees in Jaffna not allowed to report for duty in Vanni

[TamilNet, Saturday, 21 November 2009, 05:40 GMT]
Sri Lanka Army (SLA) civil administrative officials in Jaffna refused Friday to permit government employees earlier serving in Vanni to report for duty in Ki’linochchi and Mullaiththeevu districts in Vanni though Northern Province Governor, Major G. A. Chandrasiri had ordered them to report for duty in both districts. Many government employees including teachers who are originally from Ki’linochchi and Mullaiththeevu districts and now staying in Jaffna were not allowed to return to their places for duty Friday by the SLA civil authorities in Jaffna Sinhala Maha Viththiyalaya.
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Vanni IDPs held in Thenmaraadchi to be settled in Army HSZ in Vadamaraadchi

[TamilNet, Friday, 20 November 2009, 16:33 GMT]
Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) from earlier Liberation Tiger controlled areas in Vadamaraadchi East beyond Naakarkoayil detained in Mirusuvil and Kodikaamam IDP camps in Thenmaraadchi are to be settled in the Sri Lanka Army (SLA) High Security Zone (HSZ) in Ma’nattkaadu in Vadmaraadchi, according to Maruthangkea’ni Assistant Government Agent (AGA), S. Sriskantharajah. Ma’nattkaadu, Ampan and Kudaththanai villages are located in the HSZ where people are not permitted to move freely by the occupying SLA soldiers, sources in Vadamaraadchi said.
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IDPs taken to Vanni not allowed residing in their homes

[TamilNet, Friday, 20 November 2009, 06:42 GMT]
Sri Lanka Army (SLA) does not permit the Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) taken to Poonakari and Thu’nukkai in Vanni to reside in their houses but keep them lodged in the school buildings, sources in Jaffna said. Meanwhile, SLA in Jaffna takes a group of teachers to these areas and brings them back daily in buses claiming that they teach the children of the IDPs. This is but an attempt by the government to show that the released Vanni IDPs are leading a normal life as it is not possible to conduct educational activities in schools occupied by IDPs, education officers in Jaffna observed.
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SLA continues detention of IDPs in Kaithadi camp

[TamilNet, Thursday, 19 November 2009, 05:44 GMT]
Sri Lanka Army (SLA) authorities in Jaffna continue to detain a group of Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) including female undergrads of Jaffna University though action is taken to close all IDP camps in Jaffna and to detain the remaining IDPs in Raamaavil camp in Thenmaraadchi, sources in Jaffna said. Though the relatives of the above IDPs in Jaffna had applied to take responsibility of the IDPs they are continued to be held as SLA has not issued the needed ‘clearance’ to release them, Jaffna Government Agent said.
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Police instruct resettled Vanni IDPs in Batticaloa to re-register

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 18 November 2009, 05:16 GMT]
Police have requested all resettled Vanni internally displaced families in Batticaloa district to re-register them in the respective police stations immediately, sources in Batticaloa said.
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Vanni IDPs in Thenmaradchi camps to be settled in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 17 November 2009, 17:03 GMT]
2010 persons belonging to 624 families from the districts of Mullaiththeevu and Ki’linochchi in Vanni who still remain in the interim camps in Thenmaraachi are to be settled in Jaffna as no relatives or friends had come forward to take the responsibility of looking after them, Jaffna Government Agent (GA), K. Ganesh told media. The government, faced with limited relief resources to maintain the Vanni IDPs in Thenmaraadchi, is trying to get them off its hands, NGO representatives in Jaffna said.
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Sri Lanka schemes ‘legal reform’ to negate identity and grab land

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 11 November 2009, 02:34 GMT]
News reports from Colombo indicate Sri Lanka government is planning to revise the Theasa Vazhamai law of Tamils, which is a constituent legal code, ever since the formulation of the island’s current legal system by the Dutch. The urgency of the Sri Lanka state at this juncture is not social reformation but grabbing the lands of Tamils without legal hurdles, besides removing last vestiges of Tamil sovereignty in the state apparatus, Tamil legal circles said.
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Age of struggle Tamil poetry comes in English

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 10 November 2009, 09:01 GMT]
Eezham Tamil poetry since 1970s by three leading poets has been translated into English and for the first time appears in an exclusive volume, which is to be launched in Canada Saturday. One of the poets, Puthuvai Rathnathurai, regarded as Tamil National Bard, was last seen among the displaced moving towards internment camps during the closing days of the war in Vanni and was taken into custody by the Sri Lanka Army. He is reportedly kept in undeclared captivity under rigorous conditions.
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Jaffna, an open prison since SLA occupation – Southern media persons

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 10 November 2009, 05:27 GMT]
A group consisting 27 media persons from the South brought to Jaffna by the Peace Congress Sunday told media in Jaffna that after 13 years of Sri Lanka Army (SLA) occupation Jaffna peninsula remains an open prison for its residents, before leaving Jaffna Monday. People lock themselves into their houses after dark and are subjected to various restrictions violating their freedom of movement, expression, imposed by SLA, they further said.
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Government has to get the support of the South first to solve Tamil ethnic issue – Vasudeva Nanayakkara

[TamilNet, Sunday, 08 November 2009, 06:28 GMT]
Senior Advisor to Sri Lanka President Mahinda Rajapakse and a veteran Sinhalese politician, Vasudeva Nanayakkara, said that the government has to get the support of the people in the South of the country to solve the problems of the Tamils, in response to questions raised by the members of Jaffna Traders’ Association (JTA) in a meeting held Saturday evening in the JTA building in Jaffna. The members had asked as to why it was not possible to carry out the Supreme Court directive to resettle the IDPs from Valikaamam North in their own places now occupied by Sri Lanka Army while the Supreme Court order to demerge Northern and Eastern provinces had been executed overnight.
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Vanni IDPs suffer in flooded Vavuniyaa camps

[TamilNet, Saturday, 07 November 2009, 16:56 GMT]
Most of the Sri Lanka Army (SLA) internment camps for Vanni IDPs in Vavuniyaa being flooded due to the current down pour many of the IDPs held in Menik Farm camp had fled from their shelters seeking refuge in the public halls and school buildings located inside the camp, sources in Vavuniyaa said. Meanwhile, amid heavy rains and thunder civil authorities continue to transfer IDPs from Menik Farm during nights and drop them in public places in areas where their homes are located.
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