Norwegian Tamils protest against Sri Lanka Rights violations

[TamilNet, Friday, 14 September 2007, 12:27 GMT]
Around 200 Norwegian Tamils of Norwegian Tamils Federation (NTF) gathered in front of Norway Foreign Ministry in Oslo Friday between 10:00 to 11:00 a.m, before a scheduled meeting of the Sri Lanka Minister of Human Rights Mahinda Samarasinghe with Norway Foreign Ministry Officials, urging Norway to exert pressure on the Government of Sri Lanka (GoSL) to immediately stop the ethnic cleansing of Tamils in Sri Lanka, sources in Oslo said. Norwegian Special Envoy to Sri Lanka Peace Process, Jon Hanssen Bauer addressed the demonstrators before receiving a memorandum from the protesters.


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Bishop Malcolm Ranjith refutes press reports over his meeting with Rajapaksa

[TamilNet, Friday, 14 September 2007, 01:26 GMT]
Bishop Rt. Rev. Dr. Malcom, the secretary of the Congregation of Divine Worship of the Vatican, who visited Vanni Thursday to meet Liberation Tigers Political Head S.P. Thamilchelvan, has refuted press reports in Colombo which said that the Bishop had appreciated the Sri Lankan president for his measures to "wipe out terrorism," when he met the SL president, Mahinda Rajapaksa, Monday. "I never said I appreciated anything connected with the war. I did not go for the meeting with the President to say such things," Bishop Malcolm dismissed the media reports in Colombo. "I don't appreciate war mongering or any violence," he futher told the reporters in Ki'linochchi.
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Wickremasinghe to visit India

[TamilNet, Sunday, 09 September 2007, 12:51 GMT]
Mr.Ranil Wickremasinghe, leader of the main opposition United National Party (UNP), is to visit India to hold vital talks with Indian leaders. This follows the visit to India of Sri Lanka Government three-member delegation headed by Mr.Lalith Weeratunge, Secretary to President Mahinda Rajapakse, accompanied by two Rajapakse brothers, Defence Secretary Mr.Gothabaya Rajapakse and Presidential senior advisor Mr.Basil Rajapakse, media reports said.
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SLA soldier killed during bomb clearing operation

[TamilNet, Sunday, 02 September 2007, 16:54 GMT]
A Sri Lanka Army (SLA) soldier searching for explosives in Pulipaaynthakal, Kiraan, Vaazhaichcheanai police division in Batticaloa district was killed Sunday at 12:30 p.m when a hidden land mine exploded, Vaazhaichchenai police said.
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UNP to move no-confidence motion on Rajapakse government

[TamilNet, Sunday, 02 September 2007, 12:22 GMT]
The main opposition United National Party (UNP) is to submit a no-confidence motion against government headed by Sri Lanka's President Mahinda Rajapakse when parliament meets on Tuesday, parliamentary sources in Colombo said. The political affairs committee of the UNP took this decision at a meeting held on Wednesday following one-to-one talks between former president Ms Chandrika Kumaratunge, and Mr.Ranil Wickremasinghe, UNP leader.


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RSF urges EU, US to help protect Sri Lanka journalist

[TamilNet, Friday, 31 August 2007, 06:58 GMT]
Reporters sans frontiers (RSF) in a press release issued Wednesday urged European and US Embassies to do their utmost to protect Iqbal Athas, investigative journalist of the Sunday Times weekly in Sri Lanka, who had gone into hiding for fear of his life after he published an article, revealing corruptions Sri Lanka State's purchase of Mig-fighter jets from Ukraine. Athas finds himself the target of some members of the government and the army and Sri Lanka's President should order the speedy restoration of Iqbal Athas' security, RSF further said in the press release.
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Cultural Triangle project to restore Buddhist shrines in east

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 28 August 2007, 10:57 GMT]
A cultural triangle project is to be launched to restore all Buddhist shrines in the districts of Ampaa'rai and Trincomalee by the Sri Lanka's Cultural Ministry. According to the proposed project Digavapi in Amparai district, and Thiriyaai Girihandu Seya Vihare in Trincomalee district are to be restored under the first phase, ministry sources said.
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Fernandopulle defiant at Ki-moon’s rebuke

[TamilNet, Sunday, 19 August 2007, 08:12 GMT]
Senior Sri Lankan minister Jeyaraj Fernandopulle launched a scathing attack against United Nation’s Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, saying that he did not give a ‘damn’ about whatever he (Ki-moon) had to say, The Nation newspaper reported. Fernandopulle was responding to Ki-Moon’s criticism that Fernandopulle’s comments last week calling UN humanitarian coordinator John Holmes a “terrorist” who took a bribe from the LTTE were “unacceptable and unwarranted.” Mr. Holmes has meanwhile has written to Sri Lanka’s President Mahinda Rajapakse explaining himself. President Rajapakse has not commented on the controversy.
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APRC is dead, says UNP

[TamilNet, Thursday, 16 August 2007, 00:43 GMT]
After the Tuesday meeting of the All Party Representative Committee (APRC) on Constitutional Reforms was abruptly halted and adjourned indefinitely due to demands from Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) and Mahajana Eksath Peramuna (MEP) members, and failed to "finalise a draft report by today to keep to a deadline set by the United National Party UNP," the opposition UNP spokesperson said the "APRC process is dead in the water," the Morning Leader reported in the Wednesday edition.
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Sri Lanka: ‘Holmes is a terrorist’

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 15 August 2007, 13:38 GMT]
Stung by a top UN official’s criticism that Sri Lanka has one of the worst records in the world for humanitarian aid worker safety, the Colombo government Wednesday condemned him as a “terrorist” and said he had been bribed by the Tamil Tigers to tarnish the country’s reputation. Meanwhile the head of the government's peace secretariat accused French aid group Action Contre la Faim of being responsible for the massacre of 17 of their own local staff last year through "negligence" and "irresponsibility". International monitors have blamed government troops for the killings.
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Black July emblematic of Sinhala rule - paper

[TamilNet, Monday, 23 July 2007, 05:38 GMT]
In nearly a quarter century of conflict since the state-sponsored anti-Tamil riots of July 1983, despite the tens of thousands of lives that have been lost in the conflict, “there has not been an iota of change in the Sinhala leadership’s thinking – nor, for that matter, in the sentiments of the international community [on the ethnic question],” the Tamil Guardian newspaper argued in its editorial this week. Comparing the regimes of Presidents Junius Jayawardene, Chandrika Kumaratunga and Mahinda Rajapakse, the paper contends: “Black July is not just a historical event. Rather, it is an emblematic act of Sinhala rule."
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Ambassador Boucher arrives in Colombo

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 08 May 2007, 20:05 GMT]
Ambassador Richard Boucher, Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Affairs in the US government arrived in Colombo Tuesday afternoon around 3:00 p.m. on a three day visit to Sri Lanka. US embassy officials in Colombo received him at the Katunayake international airport.
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SL parliament to debate UK moves on ethnic conflict

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 08 May 2007, 10:58 GMT]
The Sinhala nationalist Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) is to move for a special debate in Sri Lanka's parliament on the appointment of an all-party committee by the House of Commons in United Kingdom to assist in finding a political solution to the island ethnic conflict, parliamentary sources in Colombo said. Earlier the JVP politburo issued a statement condemning the United Kingdom for interfering in Sri Lanka's internal affairs and undermining the sovereignty of Sri Lanka.
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Sri Lanka's Minister opposes DC system

[TamilNet, Monday, 07 May 2007, 10:40 GMT]
"The proposed District Council (DC) system by the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) would not help to solve the ethnic conflict. The quazi-federal constitution now in force in India would be ideal to find a lasting political solution to the conflict," Mr.Jeyaraj Fernandopulle, a senior minister and the chief whip of the SLFP in parliament told media persons.
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Dissidents to rejoin UNP?

[TamilNet, Monday, 07 May 2007, 10:35 GMT]
Sri Lanka's parliament is to meet Tuesday after Tamil-Sinhala New Year and Wesak celebrations amid speculation in political circles that some dissident parliamentarians of the main opposition United National Party (UNP) are expected to re-join the UNP. The dissidents are expected to cross over to the opposition side during the current session of the parliament, informed political sources in Colombo said.
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SLFP proposals, an outrageous offer, says Edirisinha

[TamilNet, Saturday, 05 May 2007, 12:02 GMT]
Deriding the claim that the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) proposals pave the way for a "lasting and honourable solution to the ethnic issue," Dr.Rohan Edirisinha, head of the Legal and Constitutional Unit of the Colombo-based think-tank Center for Policy Alternatives (CPA), says in an opinion column in Saturday issue of daily mirror that the proposals go back to the failed district council proposals of the 1980s and "are potentially dangerous for democracy, good governance and the existence of independent institutions," and "demonstrates that those responsible for the proposals are completely out of touch with the realities of constitutional reform for conflict resolution."
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Police powers to military threatens democracy - NPC

[TamilNet, Friday, 04 May 2007, 06:16 GMT]
Colombo based National Peace Council, a peace group, Friday said it was "extremely concerned," about SL President Mahinda Rajapaksa's decision, a month ago, about delegating police powers to the military. "There is an urgent need for the government to demonstrate clear political will in regard to law and order processes if it is to retain the confidence of the civilian population that it is not taking the country on a journey to anarchy and to the breakdown of democratic governance," the NPC said. The group said it was apprehensive that this government decision will send wrong signals and lead to an aggravation of the hardships faced by the civilian population.
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Police powers to military, licence to torture, says Rights Group

[TamilNet, Thursday, 26 April 2007, 08:49 GMT]
The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) Thursday warned that Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa's recent declaration of delegating police powers to the Sri Lanka military would pave the way for the re-emergence of torture chambers inside Sri Lankan military camps similar to those of late 1980s when more than 30,000 persons disappeared. "The re-emergence of such a situation should be frightening to the citizens of a country which has seen such a situation in the past. Under the present circumstances the emerging situation can be even worse," the AHRC said.
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GoSL denies air transport to Batticaloa MPs

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 25 April 2007, 02:02 GMT]
The Government of Sri Lanka (GoSL) refused to provide helicopter transport to the four Tamil National Alliance (TNA) Parliamentarian of Batticaloa district, from Colombo to Batticaloa, to attend the District Development Council (DDC) meeting held at Batticaloa Kachcheri Tuesday, TNA sources said. The MPs requested transport help following death threats from Karuna Group. The meeting was organized to explore solutions to the IDP problems and to endorse the other development activities planned for the current year.
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Rajapaksa delegates civil police powers to military

[TamilNet, Monday, 23 April 2007, 11:23 GMT]
Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa has delegated civil powers hitherto discharged by the Police to the three armed forces, Sri Lanka Army (SLA), Sri Lanka Navy (SLN) and Sri Lanka Air Force (SLAF) by a recent Extra-Ordinary Gazette Notification of 1491/18 under Chapter 40 of the Public Security Ordinance dated April 06, 2007. Civil powers entrusted with the police throughout the whole island have been delegated to the military by Mr. Rajapaksa.
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