First land, now food: Sri Lanka’s powers-abetted genocide progresses unabated

[TamilNet, Friday, 07 January 2011, 01:17 GMT]
In its innovative model of inspiring the entire world on genocide, the Sri Lankan state has decided to deploy its occupying military to cultivate 40, 000 acres of abandoned land in the country of Eezham Tamils, after uprooting them in the war and not allowing them to resettle. The program is being implemented under the directions of SL President Mahinda Rajapaksa and Defense Secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa, according to SL military media. The SL colonial governor in the north, Maj. Gen. G A Chandrasiri said this week that the government would cultivate black gram on 19,786 acres, groundnuts on 7,231 acres, red onions on 4,709 acres, green chillies on 4,329 acres and cowpea on 4,729 acres. The SL Army will also buy produce of farmers cultivating near its sprawling estates, and it will sell vegetables in Colombo at ‘concessionary’ rate to control market prices.
Full story >>

Tamil jewellery shop in Colombo burgled

[TamilNet, Thursday, 06 January 2011, 10:47 GMT]
A jewellery shop located close to a police station along busy Galle Road in Wellawatte was burgled by a gang of unidentified persons Tuesday morning. The owner of the jewelry shop is a Tamil person. Initial investigations revealed that the value of the jewellery robbed could be estimated to the tune of several hundred thousands of rupees, Police said. The Tamil business community in the Wellawatte area is highly perturbed over the day time robbery carried out by a gang in a busy area watched by recently installed detective cameras by the Sri Lankan defense ministry.
Full story >>

Imelda accuses police, prefers military

[TamilNet, Monday, 03 January 2011, 18:49 GMT]
The Sri Lanka Police has failed in its duty to arrest killings, abductions and anti-social activities in Jaffna, Imelda Sugumar, the Sri Lankan government agent in Jaffna accused on Monday. In a press meeting at her office, she briefed the journalists about her preference to induct the occupying SL military to police the situation further in Jaffna. The police are corrupt and no ‘development’ work is possible in the district under the current circumstances, she claimed. Two weeks ago, while meeting a section of Tamil politicians, the Sri Lankan president Mahinda Rajapaksa was also vocal about his preference to the military than the police in running the affairs of the Tamil land. He said this in reply to the visiting politicians when they expressed concern about SL military cantonments in the country of Eezham Tamils.
Full story >>

India continues grooming genocidal military of Sri Lanka

[TamilNet, Saturday, 25 December 2010, 14:36 GMT]
As a goodwill gesture, India is expected to gift some military equipment such as shoulder-fired missiles and radars to Sri Lanka when Indian defence secretary Pradeep Kumar undertakes a two-day visit to Colombo from Monday, PTI reported Friday. The equipment, part of the assistance provided earlier to Sri Lanka to fight Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), is planned to be gifted apparently to demonstrate India's efforts to help build the defence capabilities of Colombo in the backdrop of Chinese attempts to make inroads there, PTI further said. Kumar, who will hold talks with his counterpart Gotabhaya Rajapaksa, is also likely to discuss the future defence requirements of the Sri Lankan armed forces. If the war with the LTTE is over, against whom India is grooming a genocidal military, wonder Eezham Tamils.
Full story >>

Philippines awards peace prize to SLA, joins Colombo boycotting Nobel ceremony

[TamilNet, Thursday, 09 December 2010, 15:40 GMT]
Philippines on Thursday decided to boycott the Nobel peace prize award ceremony in Oslo Friday. Sri Lanka will also boycott the ceremony that awards the peace prize to Liu Xiaobo, who in his struggle for political reforms in China was sentenced to 11 years imprisonment last year. Meanwhile, during the Heroes Day week of Eezham Tamils, Major General Mahinda Hathurusinghe of the war crimes accused military of Sri Lanka was awarded Gusi International Peace Prize in a ceremony held at the Philippine International Convention Centre, Manila, on 24 November. Colombo’s military website run in Jaffna said on 27 November that the award given to Hathurusinghe was the “Asian equivalent to the Nobel Prize”.
Full story >>

Suspect Sri Lanka war-criminal in UN post under US media spotlight

[TamilNet, Monday, 06 December 2010, 07:42 GMT]
“The Sri Lankan government has appointed a senior army officer accused of war crimes in the conflict with Tamil rebels as its deputy permanent representative to the United Nations,” Washington Times said in a lead article Sunday referring to ex-Major General Shavendra Silva who commanded one of the largest divisions in Sri Lanka Army, and was the front line commander during the final phases of the war, the blood bath in which more than 40,000 Tamil civilians were alleged to have been killed in indiscriminate bombardment.
Full story >>

Sinhala settlers in Jaffna rob rain-affected Tamils

[TamilNet, Sunday, 05 December 2010, 09:57 GMT]
Tamil families who had to temporarily leave their houses in low lying resettlement lands in Naavatkuzhi and returned back have found their properties robbed by settlers of a newly established Sinhala colony. According to latest reports, the number of families in the Sinhala colony in Naavatkuzhi has increased to 186 as Colombo was scheming ways to set up more Sinhala settlements in the peninsula. Resettled Tamil families also complain of theft during nights.
Full story >>

Weerawansa calls for protest against British High Commission

[TamilNet, Thursday, 02 December 2010, 19:27 GMT]
Blaming the British government for 'failing' to provide 'adequate security' to the visiting Sri Lankan president Mahinda Rajapaksa, a minister in the Rajapaksa's cabinet Wimal Weerawansa Thursday called for a protest in front of the British High Commission in Colombo on Friday. In July 2010, minister Weerawansa staged 'devil dance' in front of the UN office in Colombo demanding the UN to dissolve the expert panel announced to investigate allegations of war crimes and human rights violations in the island. The protest against the UN turned violent and Sri Lankan Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa went to the extent of threatening the police officers who were protecting the UN office from the violent protesters.
Full story >>

Gotabhaya's ministry to act against opposition MPs supporting Tamil diaspora

[TamilNet, Thursday, 02 December 2010, 19:12 GMT]
Sri Lankan Defense Ministry headed by Gotabhaya Rajapaksa has threatened to launch 'investigations' against 'Sri Lankan' politicians who express solidarity with Tamil diaspora saying that they support 'separatism'. "Action would be taken against them on evidence found," said Lakshman Hulugalla, Director General for the Media Centre for National Security at a hurriedly arranged media briefing held Thursday.
Full story >>

Imelda says she discussed Ceasefire with Gotabhaya

[TamilNet, Thursday, 11 November 2010, 05:19 GMT]
Jaffna Government Agent (GA) Imelda Sukumar said Wednesday in a meeting in Jaffna Secretariat that Sri Lankan Defence Secretary Gothabaya Rajapaksa had consented to a ceasefire when she had held talks with him in Colombo during the August 2008 SARRC Conference but Liberation Tigers had rejected the offer missing the opportunity to create a peaceful atmosphere. Commenting on Jaffna GA's latest statement, political circles in Jaffna said that Sri Lankan government servants and humanitarian workers or former LTTE members now in Colombo's captivity could speak nothing but the version of the government.
Full story >>

Arrested printer's mother harassed, hospitalized, says rights group

[TamilNet, Friday, 05 November 2010, 01:18 GMT]
Mother of arrested printer Jayampathi Bulathsinhala was harassed, and her house searched without a warrant by a group in civilian clothes and by a group in police uniform late October, an exile network of Sri Lanka journalists callling themselves Networking for Rights (NfR) said in a press release Thursday. Bulathsinhala and eight workers of 'Sarala Graphics' of Nugegoda were arrested under an order from Sri Lanka defense ministry headed by Sri lanka's President's brother Gotabhaya Rajapakse on September 7, 2010 for allegedly printing posters for the opposition UNP.
Full story >>

LTTE's Elilan surrendered to SLA on 18 May, wife tells BBC

[TamilNet, Sunday, 19 September 2010, 16:21 GMT]
Ananthi Sasitharan, wife of Elilan, former Trincomalee political head of the LTTE, told BBC Tamil service that she and her three daughters witnessed her husband and hundreds of other LTTE members surrendering to the Sri Lanka Army (SLA) soldiers on 18th May 2009, after the war has come to an end. "I have been trying to trace my husband and has not been successful to locate his whereabouts. I have no doubt that Sri Lanka's president knows where my husband and others who surrendered are being held," she told the BBC.
Full story >>

Sri Lanka stifles attempts to investigate war atrocities - paper

[TamilNet, Sunday, 05 September 2010, 19:06 GMT]
Comparing how the United States accounted any Vietnamese killed as Viet Cong, Peter Bouckert, in the British Daily Guardian said Sunday that "Sri Lanka's defence secretary, Gotabhaya Rajapaksa, has taken such creative accounting to new heights. The United Nations reported that at least 7,000 civilians were killed and tens of thousands wounded during the final months of the brutal conflict with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, which ended in May 2009. But Gotabhaya has repeatedly cast aspersions on the idea that there were any civilian casualties."
Full story >>

Canada paints 'terrorism' to escape responsibility

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 17 August 2010, 14:41 GMT]
Canadian government which tilted the balance by branding the defensive national struggle of Eezham Tamils as 'international terrorism' and was thus one of the abetters of Colombo in the war, is in its attempt to escape responsibility now breaches all bounds by painting a picture of 'terrorism' even for the arrival of refugees, Tamil circles said. "Canada government foments reaction over Tamil refugee boat," fans anti-immigrant prejudice, and boosts "Sri Lanka's authoritarian, communalist government - a government that is implicated in horrific war crimes," wrote Keith Jones in The World Socialist Website, Tuesday. Citing Public Safety Minister Vic Toews, he noted that Canada government may also use the country’s anti-terrorism laws to prosecute any Canadians of Tamil origin who helped fund the passage of their relatives to Canada on the MV Sun Sea, by linking the refugees to the LTTE.
Full story >>

SL government delegation visit to New Delhi postponed

[TamilNet, Sunday, 15 August 2010, 09:21 GMT]
An official visit of a three–member top level delegation of the Government of Sri Lanka to India is scheduled to leave Colombo on August 25 for high level talks and not on August 15 Sunday as earlier fixed. Basil Rajapakse, Economic Development Minister and a brother of Sri Lanka’s President Mahinda Rajapakse is to lead the delegation.
Full story >>

Sri Lanka’s Lesson Learnt and Reconciliation Commission begins sitting

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 11 August 2010, 15:16 GMT]
The Lesson Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC), consisting of eight members, chaired by the former Attorney General C. R. de Silva, commenced its sittings Wednesday morning at the Lakshman Kadirgamar Institute in Colombo 7, according to Commission’s Secretary S. M. Samarakoon. Bernard Goonatillake, former head of Sri Lanka's Peace Secretariat that was operational during the period of the conflict,is scheduled to give evidence on the opening day. Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa is to give evidence before the Commission 17 August. The Commission is to meet from August 11 till the 25th. Sessions on August 14th and 15th are to be held in Vavuniyaa.
Full story >>

Trial in ‘white flag’ case against Fonseka to begin on September 27

[TamilNet, Friday, 30 July 2010, 06:47 GMT]
Editor of the Sunday Leader, Frederica Janz, is one of the twenty witnesses summoned to give evidence before the Sri Lankan High Court Trial-At-Bar which is to begin on September 27 into the ‘white flag’ case against former commander of the Sri Lanka Army Sarath Fonseka. Major General Shavendra Silva and Sri Lanka’s Representative to the UN in Geneva Kshenuka Seneviratne are among the other witnesses noticed to appear in court on September 27.
Full story >>

Weerawansa abandons fast unto death after Rajapaksa visit

[TamilNet, Saturday, 10 July 2010, 14:27 GMT]
Wimal Weerawansa, the leader of the National Freedom Front (NFF) and an ally of the ruling United Peoples Freedom Alliance government Saturday evening abandoned his fast unto death accepting a glass of water from Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa. Mr. Rajapaksa paid a surprise visit to the venue where Weerawansa had been fasting. He was immediately transferred to a hospital in an ambulance.
Full story >>

Gotabhaya's involvement in agitation against UN irks foreign missions

[TamilNet, Friday, 09 July 2010, 16:36 GMT]
Sinhala journalists concerned on freedom of speech released recorded evidence of verbal abuse by the Sri Lankan Defence Secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa against the police officers providing security to the UN Compound on Tuesday, raising questions on Rajapaksa brothers involvement in triggering protest against the UN. Meanwhile, the heads of foreign missions in Sri Lanka from Germany, UK, USA, France, Italy, Switzerland, The Netherlands, Romania, Norway and EU delegation on Friday issued a statement saying that they were dismayed by the blockade of the UN-compound in Colombo and the role played in it by a government minister.
Full story >>

UN office in Colombo declares 'holiday' following protest against expert panel

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 07 July 2010, 08:35 GMT]
The United Nations office in Colombo has declared holiday on Wednesday after Wimal Weerawansa, a government minister and leader of National Freedom Front, protested outside the UN office Tuesday. Meanwhile, Mr. Weerawansa on Wednesday told journalists that their protesters will launch a fast unto death campaign if the UN fails to respond to their demands.
Full story >>