Sri Lanka relocates uprooted civilians by force in jungles to cover-up war crimes

[TamilNet, Thursday, 22 September 2011, 15:40 GMT]
Closing down the infamous Manik Farm barbed-wire camp where several thousands of war-displaced Tamil civilians were detained under extremely difficult conditions since early 2009, the genocidal Rajapaksa regime has now decided to relocate them in some strange jungle areas by force, under the name of ‘resettlement’ of internally displaced people (IDPs), mainly to cover up war crimes. Sri Lanka’s Ministry of Defence this week announced that preparations were under way to construct 600 acre new village in Koampaavil in Puthukkudiyiruppu area to resettle the remaining 7,394 IDPs from 2,097 families at the Manik Farm Camp.
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EPC acts as agent of Colombo in harassing Champoor Tamils: Thurairatnam

[TamilNet, Monday, 19 September 2011, 05:54 GMT]
Eastern Provincial Council (EPC) led by Sivanesathurai Chandrakanthan in the capacity of its chief minister has been assisting the Colombo government in harassing uprooted Eezham Tamils of Champoor now being held in so-called temporary welfare centres in Ki'liveddi, Ma'natcheanai, Mallikaith-theevu and Kaddai-pa'richchaan, alleged Mr.R.Thurairatnam, an opposition EPC councillor. He appealed to EPC administration to allocate a day to debate Champoor resettlement issue, as uprooted people are not in favour to be resettled in alternate lands other than in their original traditional Tamil villages.
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Mu'l'likku'lam villagers left to languish, resettlement denied

[TamilNet, Thursday, 15 September 2011, 16:47 GMT]
Amid claims by the Sri Lankan government that all displaced persons in Mannaar district have been resettled in their own villages, uprooted residents of Mu'l'likku'lam in Musali DS division of the district, who were evicted from their homes in 2007, are still refused entry to their village by the Sri Lanka Navy, which has changed their village into a military cantonment. The uprooted Tamils of Mu'l'likku'lam agitated on Tuesday demanding resettlement. More than 300 families of uprooted villagers, most of whom are fishermen and daily wage earners, have been living without proper housing and their children have been deprived of schooling, said Rev. Fr. Rasanayagam, the parish priest of the area.
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Colombo continues to ignore initial relief assistance to Paduvaankarai families

[TamilNet, Sunday, 04 September 2011, 22:29 GMT]
Amidst claim by the Sri Lankan government that it has been implementing ‘development’ projects in war and flood affected areas in the Batticaloa district, civil society sources complain that even after representations were made by elected representatives in SL parliament, initial relief assistances meant for families affected by war and floods are yet to come. 29,827 families displaced by the war and resettled four years ago have not been paid their first relief financial assistance and other basic facilities, according to representations made by the Batticaloa district parliamentarians.
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Sri Lanka conspires for a Sinhala division in Mullaiththeevu district

[TamilNet, Saturday, 03 September 2011, 02:22 GMT]
Occupying Sri Lanka’s Colonial Governor in the North Maj. Gen. Chandrasri and presidential sibling Basil Rajapaksa are all set to create a new Sinhala division in the Ma’nal Aa’ru part of the Mullaiththeevu district that will be delinking the contiguity of Northern and Eastern Provinces. India that has committed to the integration of the northern and eastern provinces but now collaborates with Colombo in the genocide and structural genocide of Eezham Tamils is particularly answerable to the situation, demand Tamil politicians in the island. Last week, while talking to diaspora Tamil groups, the US Asst Secretary of State feigned ignorance on the intense Sinhala colonisation that is taking place in the country of Eezham Tamils.
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World Bank aid diverted to Sinhala colonisation in Mullaiththeevu

[TamilNet, Saturday, 03 September 2011, 00:06 GMT]
The assistance given by the World Bank to North East Services Improvement Project (NELSIP) to improve road development in recently resettled areas in the Puthukudiyiruppu and Karaithu’raippattu divisions of the Mullaiththeevu district is diverted to a recently initiated Sinhala colony called Sampath Nuwara in the district at the instructions of presidential sibling Basil Rajapaksa and SL colonial governor of the north Maj. Gen. Chandrasri. SL minister Rishad Baddiudeen is also involved in the racket. The World Bank has allotted the funds to help the war-torn people and while the local administration has almost finalised the programme of road development, all of a sudden the fund amounting to 15 million has been diverted to an intrusive Sinhala colony Sampath Nuwara initiated in the Ma’nal Aa’ru area now Sinhalicised as Weli-oya in the district.
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Tamil Nadu Congress MP agrees with Gotabhaya

[TamilNet, Saturday, 27 August 2011, 04:22 GMT]
There is no need for any more solution as the 13th Amendment is already there, said Gotabhaya Rajapaksa in giving an interview to Headlines Today this month. Speaking in the Rajya Sabha, Thursday, Tamil Nadu Congress parliamentarian Dr EM Sudharshana Natchiappan agreed with Gotabhaya. “In the latest booklet released by their [Sri Lanka] Defence Ministry a humanitarian analysis is given. In that also they have accepted the Thirteenth Amendment. Why I am stressing on the Thirteenth Amendment again and again is because there is a new thinking in the policy makers that they have to go beyond the Thirteenth Amendment. This is the policy followed by all the parties including BJP after Rajiv Gandhi. What he had laid as a foreign policy for Sri Lanka is to have the Thirteenth Amendment implemented in toto, so that there is peaceful settlement,” Natchiappan said.
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‘Grease Devil’ attacks aim at frightening resettlement in Vanni

[TamilNet, Thursday, 18 August 2011, 12:59 GMT]
While attacks especially on Tamil women carried out by unidentified men in camouflage called ‘Grease Devils’ terrorise Tamil civilians in the East and the hill country, such attacks particularly aim at crippling resettlement in the Vanni districts. On Wednesday evening, three men emerging from the thickets in black dress and grease on their face chased three women of Ki’linochchi 8th milepost engaged in removing landmines. Following similar incidents and attacks on women in Vanni, people resettling in their houses and lands that are dispersed as typical to the settlement pattern of Vanni are now forced to gather into clusters. Occupying SL military’s officials now ‘advice’ resettled people in Vanni to live in clusters to avoid terrorising attacks.
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India answerable for both genocide and structural genocide of Eezham Tamils

[TamilNet, Sunday, 14 August 2011, 09:05 GMT]
The Speaker of the Indian Parliament, Meira Kumar, conceding to an objection from a Congress member, altered the topic of discussion in the parliament from “Alleged killing of Sri Lankan Tamils by the island nation’s Lankan army in 2009 as recently revealed in a United Nations report” to “On the steps taken by Government of India for relief and resettlement of Tamils in Sri Lanka and other measures to promote their welfare.” The deviated discussion scheduled for last Thursday has also been postponed to coming Tuesday. But whether in war or in post-war, New Delhi cannot escape answering for its partnership in committing genocide and structural genocide of Eezham Tamils, commented Tamil political circles in the island, citing the activities of India-partnered SL Army in the war and its aftermath.
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S.M. Krishna and his suo motu statement

[TamilNet, Monday, 08 August 2011, 01:09 GMT]
The Suo Motu statement of Indian foreign minister SM Krishna on Sri Lanka in the Indian parliament has led him into a controversy of filing a defamation case against the Press Trust of India (PTI), because the latter reported him reading the statement ‘absent minded’. The minister "appeared absent-minded and had to be prodded to make a statement," PTI reported. On Krishna’s response through a defamation case the PTI said on Friday: "This is perhaps the first time a minister has threatened a news organisation with... action for reporting [House] proceedings despite the Parliamentary Proceedings [Protection of Publication] Act." Meanwhile, Krishna’s statement was meant to mislead the parliament and to hoodwink Tamil Nadu, writes, a leading legal practitioner and human rights activist of Trincomalee.
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Colombo targeting Tamil civil service is more than revenge

[TamilNet, Friday, 29 July 2011, 18:02 GMT]
Orders have been issued by Sri Lanka president Mahinda Rajapaksa and by his sibling Basil Rajapaksa to colonial governor Maj. Gen. Chandrasri for immediate and full-swing replacement of Tamil civil service in the north. The act may superficially look as a revenge for the defeat in the civic elections, but it is actually aimed to make any political solution that will be ‘accounted’ to the outside world completely meaningless to Eezham Tamils, and is a part of a long-contemplated agenda of structural genocide, political observers said. Meanwhile, knowing what is happening and what will happen in demography, political representation, civil administration, militarisation and in all other respects, why should the TNA commit to seek solutions under a ‘united Sri Lanka’ just because the powers that abetted the genocide want it, ask non TNA Tamil nationalists.
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US official foresees elections in the north as way for ‘indigenous leadership’

[TamilNet, Friday, 22 July 2011, 12:17 GMT]
While the US Secretary of State Ms. Hillary Clinton visiting Chennai was looking at “some innovative and creative ideas” to break the impasse over the ‘Sri Lankan Tamils’ issue, a senior US State Department official told reporters in Chennai on Wednesday that the US government was looking towards Sri Lanka conducting provincial council elections in the north to facilitate the emergence of indigenous leadership for the first time in 30 years. Meanwhile, campaigning for Rajapaksa in the intimidated civic elections in the north that is now taking place ‘guided’ by the Rajapaksa regime and its occupying Army, SL minister Vasudeva Nanayakara on Tuesday said in Jaffna that Tamils should vote for Rajapaksa to “ensure that there is no foreign interferences.”
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SL Minister Nanayakara accepts mass killings of civilians in Vanni

[TamilNet, Thursday, 21 July 2011, 22:57 GMT]
A top minister in Mahinda Rajapaksa regime has publicly accepted the mass-scale killing of Tamil civilians during the final months of the war in 2009. SL Minister and the leader of Democratic Left Front (DLF), Vasudeva Nanayakara on Tuesday said that his party accepted the important fact that innocent civilians have been killed during the Vanni war. Amid growing international pressure for an international probe into the credible allegations of war crimes in Sri Lanka, Mr. Nanayakara, who was on a propaganda drive seeking the public in Jaffna to support the Rajapaksa alliance in the upcoming civic elections in North, said that Tamils could only exert meaningful pressure on the SL government by supporting his alliance.
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ICG: Sri Lanka further from reconciliation than ever

[TamilNet, Monday, 18 July 2011, 17:28 GMT]
President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s authoritarian and Sinhalese nationalist post-war policies are undermining prospects for reconciling Sri Lanka’s ethnic communities, weakening democracy for all Sri Lankans and increasing the risk of a return to violent conflict, the International Crisis Group warned Monday, announcing its latest report, ‘Reconciliation in Sri Lanka: Harder than Ever’. “Sri Lanka may be ‘post-war’, but it will never be ‘post-conflict’ until all its people are free to build a credible narrative of its past and to play meaningful roles in their own governance, ” says Alan Keenan, Crisis Group’s Senior Analyst on Sri Lanka.
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Heavy tides drowns fishing boat, 2 fishermen reported missing in Poonakari

[TamilNet, Monday, 18 July 2011, 09:12 GMT]
Two fishermen from Valaippaadu, a coastal village in the Poonakari division of Ki'linochchi were reported missing after their fishing boat drowned due to heavy tides on Saturday. The two reported missing were former LTTE members who were released from Sri Lanka Army detention recently. Poverty-stricken fishermen in ‘resettled’ Poonakari are forced to brave the seas amidst bad weather, strong winds and rough seas to sustain their livelihood.
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Midnight ‘resettlement’ of IDPs for Basil-show

[TamilNet, Monday, 04 July 2011, 08:38 GMT]
IDPs from Vadamaraadchi East (a former LTTE controlled region) affected by the war and were staying in the Raamaavil camp near Kodikaamam for more than two years were all of a sudden ordered to vacate the camp immediately by Saturday midnight and were herded by the occupying SL Army into military vehicles, after telling them that they would be ‘resettled’ in their villages in Vadamaraadchi East. They are at present staying in a school building in Vadamaraadchi East, without any food or facilities. They were ordered to go to their abandoned and dilapidated houses within three days and ‘live’ there. The reason for the overnight operation executed in an inhuman way was that the visiting presidential sibling Basil Rajapaksa wanted to make a show of enacting ‘resettlement’, news sources in Jaffna said.
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SL government manipulates IDP statistics in East: TNA MP

[TamilNet, Sunday, 03 July 2011, 12:45 GMT]
Tamil National Alliance parliamentarian from Batticaloa district, P. Selvarajah has blamed the Mahinda Rajapaksa government for false records of resettlement in the province. While many thousands people still find themselves displaced, their names are marked as resettled in the SL government records. “For example, people who displaced from Kagnchi-kudichchaa'ru and Thangka-vealaayutha-puram during the war are still living as displaced in Thampiluvil and Vinaayakapuram in Thirukkoayil in Ampaa'rai. But, their names are registered as resettled in the government list,” Mr. Selvarajah MP told media on Saturday. Rajapaksa government has also seized thousands of acres of lands in Ampaa'rai for the families of the Sinhala military personnel, he further accused.
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Military exercises aim at terrorising people in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Thursday, 30 June 2011, 21:47 GMT]
Joint military exercises conducted by the occupying SL Army and Navy in the Jaffna peninsula in recent times, aim at terrorising Eezham Tamils and keeping them under indefinite military occupation environment, civil society circles in Jaffna said. Intense joint military exercises were conducted continuously for three days this week at Naakar-koayil in Vadamaraadchi East and at Maathakal-Thiruvadinilai coast in Valikaamam, where people recently resettled. Fishermen avoided going to the sea as volleys of shells were fired towards the sea and residents confined themselves to houses.
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Death certificates to whitewash abductions, killings?

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 28 June 2011, 10:10 GMT]
Relatives of persons categorized under the missing and disappeared in Batticaloa district for more than a year are in dilemma whether to obtain death certificates as they believe that they are alive. The relatives say that their loved ones were abducted, in their presence, by para military groups led by Karuna and Pilliayan, and by the Sri Lanka Army (SLA) soldiers, and could be still alive.
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Sexual violence against Eezham Tamils carried out with genocidal intentions

[TamilNet, Sunday, 26 June 2011, 14:25 GMT]
Sexual violence committed against Eezham Tamils by the occupying Sri Lanka Army in Vanni is on the increase in the recent months, reliable civil sources told TamilNet. Personnel in military vehicles and auto rickshaws parked under the trees away from the roadside in Ki'linochchi commit sexual violence to girls forcefully brought from the resettled villages and sometimes even to girls passing by on the road, by grabbing them into the vehicles. The wails of the victims are commonly heard, but people are unable to do anything about it, the civil sources further said. The violence is systematically committed with genocidal mentality and soon by replacing the civil administration of Ki'linochchi entirely by the Sinhalese, all protests will be silenced, the sources added.
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