Weerawansa’s protest against UN turns violent, announces 'devil dance'

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 06 July 2010, 14:30 GMT]
Sri Lankan Minister for Construction and Housing, Wimal Weerawansa, who launched a protest in front of the UN office in Bauddaloka Mawatta in Colombo demanding the UN to dissolve the expert panel announced by the UN Secretary General to investigate allegations of war crimes and human rights violations, arrived at the demonstration site around 5:00 p.m. and prompted the protesters to enter the premises of the UN complex after phoning Sri Lankan Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa and receiving instructions, a reporter at the site told TamilNet. A police officer was manhandled by the mob and the police has withdrawn from the premises. The protest was going till the reporter left the site at 7:00 p.m. The minister himself attacked the police officer and has planned to hold 'devil dance' throughout the night in front of the UN office.
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Clash of Roadmaps

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 30 June 2010, 19:33 GMT]
The Mahinda – KP move handled by the military intelligence of Sri Lanka, whether a culmination of a long-term strategy or a move to probe the diaspora, is now backfiring against Colombo, is backfiring against some international actors harping on wrong notions of reconciliation and is backfiring against some elements in the diaspora which were long dreaming on the success of this move to trail behind with their tangential politics.
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Indian Navy Chief visits Sri Lanka

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 30 June 2010, 08:08 GMT]
Chief of Naval Staff of the Indian Navy Admiral Nirmal Verma arrived in Colombo Sunday on a five day visit to Sri Lanka as a part of efforts to strengthen bilateral defense ties with Sri Lanka, met Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa, who is the Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces and the Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa. Admiral Verma during was scheduled to grace Sri Lanka Navy officers' passing out parade at the Naval and Maritime Academy in Trincomalee.
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Gotabhaya appoints new military spokesman

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 30 June 2010, 08:05 GMT]
Brigadier Ubaya Madawela has been appointed Sri Lanka's Military Media Spokesman replacing Major General Prasad Samarasinghe. Sri Lankan Defence Ministry sources said that Major General Prasad Samarasinghe had been earlier appointed as media spokesman on temporary basis.
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KP-Diaspora programme operated by SL Military Intelligence: Doctor Arudkumar

[TamilNet, Monday, 28 June 2010, 21:31 GMT]
Sri Lankan Director of National Intelligence, Major General Kapila Hendawitharana, the longest serving intelligence officer of the military, is in charge of the covert and overt programme of dividing and conquering the Tamil diaspora, alludes British Tamil doctor Velauthapillai Arudkumar, who visited the island recently as part of a ‘Tamil diaspora visit’ organised by Colombo through Selvarasa Pathmanathan alias KP. TamilNet releases an exclusive video interview with Dr. Arudkumar taken two days ago, in which he reveals the details of the trip. SL Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa, Maj. Gen. Hendawitharana and External Affairs Minister G.L.Peiris, all spoke in a well-synchronised way. Military counterinsurgency and 'post-war development' are intertwined aiming at Tamil subjugation, the doctor infers in his interview.
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Sand dunes scooped at Ma'n'niththalai

[TamilNet, Monday, 28 June 2010, 07:56 GMT]
Similar to the plunder of limestone in the Jaffna Peninsula, agents of Colombo are now engaged in scooping the sand dunes of the Ma’n’niththalai sandbar, which is of immense natural beauty and of archaeological as well as tourist potentiality, sources in Poonakari said. The fragile ecology of the densely populated Jaffna Peninsula is deliberately destroyed by corporates in the construction industry and by their contractors, academics in Jaffna said. The plunder of resources in Jaffna and Vanni are divided among Douglas Devandanda and Namal Rajapaksa respectively. Meanwhile percentage of benefits from large-scale 'development' contracts goes to Basil Rajapaksa and the income extracted by the military goes to Gotabhaya Rajapaksa, informed circles said.
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Continuing ‘counter insurgency’ approach to chronic national question

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 23 June 2010, 11:41 GMT]
Colombo’s latest deployment of Selvarasa Pathmanathan (KP), a victim of circumstances, to blunt the Eezham Tamil struggle only reveals that ‘counter insurgency’ is the style continued to be envisaged by some powers in approaching the chronic national question in the island, commented Tamil circles watching the developments. The move, bereft of any political promises, but aiming at roping in the diaspora for ‘development,’ comes after the visit of G L Peiris to Washington, Robert Blake lamenting that still “some polarisation” exists in the island and amidst heavy visits of dignitaries in the last couple of weeks. The move is not surprising. It is a sequence of a long-existing design, operated simultaneously through good and ugly faces of the West, observers said. The KP operation in Colombo is handled by a controversial group of foreign-trained Sri Lankan military intelligence personnel.
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Intoxicating hubris

[TamilNet, Monday, 21 June 2010, 00:01 GMT]
Sri Lanka's Defense Secretary, Gotabhaya Rajapakse, who is widely believed to be the key Sri Lanka official responsible for instituting procedures and issuing commands that allegedly violated international norms in the conduct of war, has provided enlightening clues to inner workings of his mind in several interviews recorded on film by reputable international media. "His unchecked power, authorized by his brother and Sri Lanka's President Mahinda Rajapakse, appears to have blunted his reasoning faculty, triggering him to compulsively express open threats against journalists and unwittingly admit to abject disregard for civilian casualties while issuing military commands. Many of his statements border on self-incrimination," said a spokesperson for Tamils Against Genocide (TAG), a US-based activist group. A collection of Gotabhaya interviews are compiled in this feature.
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‘Biggest betrayal and greatest tamasha’

[TamilNet, Friday, 18 June 2010, 11:53 GMT]
Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa who presided over 'Victory Day' celebrations in Colombo on Friday, marking one-year of the victory by the Sri Lankan forces in their war against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, described the attempts to bring disrepute to the armed forces by saying that they shot at ‘terrorist leaders who came carrying white flags,’ as biggest betrayal. Mr. Mahinda Rajapaksa, who is also the Commander-in-Chief of the Sri Lankan armed forces, came with the greatest tamasha of his career so far by saying that his troops went to battle carrying a gun in one hand and the Declaration of Human Rights in the other. The Sri Lankan President also came with a warning aiming at diaspora Tamils: “What those from abroad who seek to strengthen separatism are really doing is, to once again corral the people of the north into camps.”
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Tamil Nadu delegation not satisfied after meeting Rajapaksa in New Delhi

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 09 June 2010, 16:49 GMT]
A delegation of 21 MPs from Tamil Nadu led by T.R. Baalu failed to secure concrete assurances on political settlement, release of Prisoners of War or resettlement of Tamils after meeting Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa in New Delhi on Wednesday. In a televised comment in Sun News, Mr. T.R. Balu said that there was some progress, but added he was not satisfied with the output of the meeting. The Sri Lankan delegation headed by Mr. Rajapaksa and the Indian delegation led by Dr. Manmohan Singh inked seven agreements, which included bilateral counter-insurgency and corporate deals. In the meantime, fifteen Tamil Nadu fishermen from Rameswaram were admitted to hospital after they were stripped off their clothes, tortured with ice on their heads and were forced to eat salt and raw fish by the Sri Lanka Navy on Tuesday off Kachchatheevu in Palk Strait, media reports in Tamil Nadu said.
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JVP: Gotabhaya insulted Fonseka in BBC interview

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 09 June 2010, 07:37 GMT]
The Sinhala nationalist Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) Tuesday condemned the comment made by Sri Lankan Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapakse to BBC Hard Talk interview where he claimed General (retired) Sarath Fonseka, former commander of the Sri Lanka Army would be treated as a traitor and hanged if he gives evidence in the war crime probe.
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Court orders Sunday Leader Editor to produce note book regarding Fonseka’s interview

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 08 June 2010, 03:51 GMT]
Colombo Chief Magistrate Champa Janaki Rajaratne Monday ordered the Chief Editor of the Sunday Leader, a weekly newspaper published from Colombo. to produce her note book in court on the next date of inquiry on June 21. Her note book is said to have contained the original transcript of the controversial interview with the former Commander of the Sri Lanka Army General (retired) Sarath Fonseka.
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Peiris to head Sri Lankan military officials in Security Summit

[TamilNet, Thursday, 03 June 2010, 09:51 GMT]
Former Chief Negotiator of the Government of Sri Lanka (GoSL) and the incumbent Foreign Minister G. L. Peiris, who recently left a scheduled meeting with journalists at the National Press Club without speaking, is heading a delegation to attend the 9th International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) Asia Security Summit, which is taking place in Singapore Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Peiris is scheduled to attend the Shangri-La dialogue to address defence ministers, defence secretaries, intelligence chiefs and national security and defence officials from 28 countries on Sri Lankan 'Counter-Insurgency' and the challenges of "reasserting control and governance in formerly LTTE held areas."
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STF again under SL Defence Ministry

[TamilNet, Friday, 28 May 2010, 13:16 GMT]
The notorious Special Task Force (STF), a military-styled elite counter insurgency arm of the Sri Lankan Police, which has been responsible for a number of war-crimes and genocidal onslaughts against Tamil speaking people in the East, has been brought under the control of the Sri Lankan Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa with effect from May 12 following a decision by SL President Mahinda Rajapaksa with the approval of his cabinet of ministers. The STF was responsible for the execution-styled massacre of five Tamil students in January 2006.
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Sri Lankan CID to record statement from UN representative over Fonseka interview

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 26 May 2010, 12:01 GMT]
The Colombo Chief Magistrate Champa Janaki Seneviratne Wednesday allowed an application by the Sri Lankan Criminal Investigations Department (CID) to record a statement from Keshunaka Seneviratne, Sri Lanka’s Permanent Representative in United Nations in Geneva regarding the comment by United Nations Special Rapporteur on extra-judicial, summary or arbitrary executions Philip Alston on an alleged interview made by former Commander of the Sri Lanka Army General (retd.) Sarath Fonseka in a letter to her. Sarath Fonseka in an interview with the Sunday Leader, English weekly on the eve of presidential election alleging that the SL Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapakse in the final leg of war with the LTTE had ordered Brigadier Shavendra Silva to shoot the LTTE officials carrying white flags.
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Colombo adopts failed Sudanese ruse to deflect war crimes charges - Prof. Boyle

[TamilNet, Sunday, 09 May 2010, 14:38 GMT]
Commenting on Sri Lanka's President Rajapakse's announcement that Colombo will appoint a 7-person commission to "search for any violations of internationally accepted norms of conduct in such conflict situations, and the circumstances that may have led to such actions [in Sri Lanka], and identify any persons or groups responsible for such acts," Francis A Boyle, professor of International Law at the University of Illinois College of Law said "after it was announced that the ICC was going after Sudan, they hired a British lawyer to advise them on setting up some type of fake internal procedure of investigation/ prosecution in order to head off the ICC, pretending to satisfy the requirement of complementarity. It miserably failed, and Sudan's Al Bashir is now under ICC's arrest warrant."
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Court turns down CID application to record Fonseka statement

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 04 May 2010, 10:00 GMT]
Colombo Chief Magistrate Monday turned down an application tendered by the Criminal Investigation Department (C.I.D) of Sri Lanka Police seeking permission of the court to record a statement from retired General Sarath Fonseka over a statement that latter had given to a Sunday English weekly regarding the killing of surrendering LTTE cadres at the last stage of the war, legal sources said.
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Uprooted Vanni civilian shot dead, first killing in Jaffna after May 2009

[TamilNet, Sunday, 02 May 2010, 17:51 GMT]
A 26-year-old male, Sivalingam Satheesan, an uprooted civilian who settled in Jaffna after leaving the Sri Lanka Army (SLA) operated internment camp in Vavuniyaa, has been gunned down on Jaffna - Point Pedro Road Sunday around 7:30 p.m. by armed men riding a motorbike. The killing has taken place in SLA-guarded road near Ceylinco insurance company and Vadamaraadchi telecommunication building. This is the first killing by gunmen reported in Jaffna after the Eelam War - 4 ended in May 2009 in Vanni. The targeted killing of Vanni IDP comes in the wake of a recent visit by Sri Lanka's Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa to Jaffna. Tension prevails in the area.
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UPFA plans 'War Heroes Week' in mid May

[TamilNet, Saturday, 01 May 2010, 16:42 GMT]
The United Peoples Freedom Alliance (UPFA) government is to celebrate War Hero’s Week (Ranaviru Sathiya) from May 12 to May 18, said the Sri Lankan Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapakse during an informal talk with media persons at Elephant Pass in the north Friday while he was on a visit to Jaffna. Media sources in Colombo commented that the model being implemented by the Sri Lankan military and the UPFA, ignoring the advice from its global partners who advocate 'reconciliation' and 'development' as 'post-conflict' paradigm in the island.
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International war corporatism continues silencing Eezham Tamils

[TamilNet, Friday, 30 April 2010, 12:30 GMT]
Diaspora Tamils wonder at the arrests, crackdowns and deportations of Eezham Tamil activists taking place in an orchestrated way in the West as well as in the East by governments conniving with the war-crimes-accused defence establishment of Colombo. The targets are those who are firm in their views on the national cause and those who work with the grass root. The timing is diaspora organising its polity. Whether the orchestration is pre-emption, expecting resurgence of the struggle as the IC knows no solutions to the crisis in the island, or whether it foretells something unpleasant that is going to be imposed on Tamils through a deal of Colombo with New Delhi and the West, are questions asked in the diaspora. How the Transnational Government of Tamil Eelam is going to be structured and how Tamil Nadu is going to play its role gains new significance in the unfolding situation.
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