SL Army earns by smuggling LTTE iron

[TamilNet, Sunday, 26 June 2011, 02:32 GMT]
Five lorry loads of scrap iron, coming from the machinery and shell-manufacturing units of the LTTE now abandoned in Vanni, were confiscated by police in Vavuniyaa when they were being smuggled to the south. The scrap iron trade is carried out with direct involvement of the officers of the occupying SL Army in Vanni and Jaffna who earn from the trade by deals with Muslim traders, informed sources said. Meanwhile, around 50 lorry-load of scrap metal left Jaffna on Thursday with full support of the SL Army.
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Tamils' land acquired to construct Arabic institution in Batticaloa

[TamilNet, Friday, 24 June 2011, 16:41 GMT]
Ea'raavoor Urban Council Chairman Ali Zahir Mowlana, a close ally of Sri Lankan president Mahinda Rajapaksa, has been blamed for illegally acquiring lands that belong to 17 families of forcefully displaced Tamils from Ward 3 and 4 of the Ea'raavoorpattu in Chengkaladi division, to construct Arabic College with aid from Arab countries while the Sri Lankan police refuses to vacate the other 40 houses it has occupied with a police station.
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Tamil Nadu Chief Minister wants Delhi to change course

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 14 June 2011, 13:20 GMT]
“The Tamil Nadu legislative assembly has recently passed a resolution urging the Government of India to initiate action by working with other nations for the imposition of an economic embargo on the Government of Sri Lanka, until the Tamils who are now living in camps are resettled in their own places and are allowed to live with dignity and with equal constitutional rights on par with the Sinhalese,” Ms. Jayalalithaa said in her memorandum to Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. The Tamil Nadu CM, who met the Indian PM on Tuesday told him that Sri Lankan Navy was harassing and torturing the Tamil Nadu fishermen and demanded cancellation of ferry service which was started Monday between Tutucorin in Tamil Nadu and Colombo. The memorandum submitted to Indian PM said on the resumption of ferry service that it “will not be advisable and it will be against the sentiments of the people.”
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UK routeing ex-LTTE ‘reintegration’ through SL Army raises controversy in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Monday, 13 June 2011, 22:06 GMT]
Announcing a donation of 5,00,000 pound sterling (90 million SL rupees), and entirely accompanied by the occupying Sri Lanka Army, the British Deputy High Commissioner in Colombo, Mark Gooding, visited a detention camp run for ‘reintegration’ of ex-LTTE combatants by the SL military at the High Security Zone part of Thellippazhai in Valikaamam North, Jaffna, on Monday. The British government policy of accepting a genocidal military accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity as competent authority for the ‘reintegration’ of the ex-LTTE combatants, and involving the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) of questionable local credibility in the process, raises controversy in Jaffna.
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Sinhala policeman found slain in Vanni

[TamilNet, Sunday, 12 June 2011, 15:21 GMT]
A 41-year-old Sinhala policeman from Ki'linochchi police station was found beaten to death at Umaiyaa'lpuram in Paranthan in Vanni Sunday morning. The dead body in civil, with beaten injuries on face and chest, was first believed to be a civilian and was taken to the mortuary at Ki'linochchil hospital. Later, the body was identified as that of Sinhala policeman, Ananada Samarakoon, sources in Ki'linochchi said.
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Amidst renewed SL militarisation, Batticaloa village observes 24th year of massacre

[TamilNet, Saturday, 28 May 2011, 12:54 GMT]
The residents of Thoa'ni-thaa'nda-madu, a village situated in Koa'ra'laip-pattu North in Batticaloa district, along the border of Polonnaruwa district, on Friday observed 14th anniversary of massacre of Tamil villagers whom the Sri Lanka Army shot and hacked to death at least 3 women and 8 men with 6 children in the early hours of 27 May 1987 while the victims were asleep. The entire village was burnt together with the bodies of the victims. Last year, following the efforts taken by certain NGOs, around 56 families comprising 102 members had been resettled in the village, according to the Divisional Secretary of the area. However, the SLA has not been willing to hand over the houses it has occupied. Recently, the deployment of the SLA has been further strengthened, threatening the villagers of possible colonisation.
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Sri Lanka GA concedes more than 50,000 continue as refugees in Jaffna alone

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 25 May 2011, 06:55 GMT]
Around 55,700 people still live the life of refugees in Jaffna, conceded Sri Lanka Government Agent in Jaffna, Mrs. Imelda Sugumar on Tuesday. The number includes people who lost their homes by the confiscation of lands by the occupying Army in Jaffna for ‘High Security Zones’ (HSZ) and those who have Jaffna connections and have come from Vanni after the war. On de-mining HSZs, 32 percent has been completed, 56 percent doesn’t need de-mining, work progresses in 5 percent and work is yet to start only in 7percent of lands, Imelda said. She didn’t answer the question whether 26 villages that are yet to be resettled in the Valikaamam HSZ come under the 56 percent that doesn’t need de-mining. She also didn’t answer the question whether the lands that are not de-mined yet are localities that have been refused of vacation by the occupying Army.
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SL minister intimidates resettled in Vanni to sign against UN report

[TamilNet, Monday, 09 May 2011, 12:55 GMT]
Similar to the show of a group of Sinhala thugs forcing passers by to sign petition against UN panel report in Jaffna city Sunday, a Sri Lankan minister CB Ratnayake lead the occupying military and military intelligence personnel to intimidate the resettled Eezham Tamils in Vanni to sign a petition Saturday and Sunday. Members of village and civil society institutions were summoned over the phone by the military to bring people to Ki’linochchi town and when they gathered, the group lead by Ratnayake forced them to sign the petition. The military deployed in the streets in large numbers saw to it that no one escapes signing.
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Occupying SL military threatens TNA politicians in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Sunday, 08 May 2011, 11:40 GMT]
While building up democratic politics in the north and east is reiterated as a prerequisite for ‘reconciliation,’ the genocidal SL Army occupying Jaffna under the command of ‘Asian Nobel Peace Laureate’ Maj. Gen. Mahinda Hathurusinghe is engaged in intimidating politicians of the Tamil National Alliance (TNA), the most favoured political formation in the north and east, and the people who come into contact with it, news sources in Jaffna said. The occupying army particularly threatening people resettled in the so-called High Security Zones that “the TNA should not come here, if they come you will be chased out again,” shows that there is a long-term agenda in the Army to take Tamil politics directly into its hands, the news sources further said.
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Robert Blake visits Ki'linochchi, learns the plight of Vanni civilians

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 03 May 2011, 18:08 GMT]
Robert O. Blake, the US assistant secretary of state for the South and Central Asian affairs visited Vanni for the first time on Tuesday and learned the plight of Tamil civilians, affected by the genocidal war waged by the Sri Lankan state in 2009 and continue to suffer in the hands of the SL military. The occupying SL military didn't allow journalists to witness the event, which was scheduled as monitoring the ‘development’ activities supported by the USAID, the lead development agency of the US government. However, civilians who had the opportunity to raise their plight with Mr. Blake, who came to witness the programmes for unemployed youth and the farmers, said they got an opportunity to raise their concerns and got a chance to respond to the questions from the visiting US diplomat.
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Armed robberies escalate in Vanni

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 03 May 2011, 16:35 GMT]
Several robberies carried out by armed men in military uniform have taken place in recent times in Ki'linochchi and Mullaiththeevu districts in Vanni, where resettlement of civilians is partially allowed. Armed men in military uniform who came to Kallaa'ru Periyaku'lam village, claiming that they were on a search operation, instructed the families of two houses to stay outside while they searched their houses around 01:00 a.m. The men removed all the valuable belongings inside the houses and walked away, residents who had recently resettled complained.
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Resettled families in Kudumpimalai village suffer without basic facilities

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 03 May 2011, 00:21 GMT]
Resettled Tamil families in Kudumpimalai village in Koa'ralaippattu south DS division in east resettled about two years ago have complained to non-governmental organizations that they are not being provided with basic facilities. NGO representatives who visited the village recently were told that about 150 families were resettled but only 25 houses constructed by NECCDEP had been handed over to the families.
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Sri Lanka plans criminal show of ‘reconciliation’ in Colombo, Jaffna on May 1

[TamilNet, Friday, 29 April 2011, 20:51 GMT]
In a cruel show of ‘reconciliation,’ Sri Lanka’s occupying military in full swing has gone to the houses of released LTTE cadres, family members of the captives and ‘resettled’ Eezham Tamils living in open prisons in north and east and intimidated them to participate in Mahinda Rajapaksa’s demonstration show in Colombo on 1 May, to oppose any international justice coming to the crimes committed against them. A fleet of buses are organized to herd the people from Vanni and Jaffna to Colombo, after warning them of dire consequences if they don’t come. Meanwhile, a group of thugs has been brought from the south for violent demonstrations in the locality of UN offices in Jaffna city on May 1.
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SL occupation of hospitals, schools harm resettlement in Vanni - TNA MP

[TamilNet, Friday, 22 April 2011, 12:20 GMT]
Tamil National Alliance parliamentarian from Vanni, S. Sritharan, has blamed the occupying Sri Lanka Army in Vanni for continuing to occupy public buildings, including primary hospitals and schools, causing severe hardships to resettling civilians. The accusation by the TNA MP comes following District Development Committee (DDC) meeting held in Jaffna on Tuesday, when Medical Officers brought to the notice of the DDC that if the Poonakari primary hospital, now occupied by the Sri Lanka Army, is handed over to them, they would resume services to the resettled civilians.
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Sinhalese being settled in Tamil village in Trincomalee

[TamilNet, Friday, 22 April 2011, 11:02 GMT]
Lands in abandoned traditional Tamil village Thennaimaravaadi in Trincomalee district are being allocated three acres each to members of ‘home guards’, now known as Civil defence Force (CVF), dominated by Sinhalese. Sri Lanka Army (SLA) in Trincomalee is organizing the transfer of land on the instruction of the SLA headquarters in Colombo without the approval of local civil authority, Tamil sources allege.
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Security for resettling Tamils in Batticaloa's border villages abysmal

[TamilNet, Monday, 04 April 2011, 21:18 GMT]
28 Tamils, most of them family men with many children, have been reported disappeared since 2008 in Batticaloa's border villages with the Sinhala districts, human rights activists in Batticaloa say. Tamil women who have lost their husbands are subjected to sexual harassments under the highly militarised condition prevailing in these villages. I'rakkaka'di villagers in Ea'raavoor-pattu in Chengkaladi division have refused to resettle without proper security to them.
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Thousands of SL troops round up resettled villages in Jaffna, Mullaiththeevu

[TamilNet, Thursday, 31 March 2011, 06:50 GMT]
Thousands of occupying troops of Sri Lanka Army rounded up the village Uduththu’rai in Vadamaraadchi East and are engaged in search operation since Thursday early morning. A similar operation is simultaneously being undertaken in Mullaiththeevu also. Vanni IDPs were recently resettled in both the places. The operation is said to be following an alleged incident in which some SL troops who went on a boat are missing in the sea and only their boat came ashore.
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5,653 cases of ‘disappeared’ pending in Sri Lanka: Forum-Asia at 16th session of UNHRC

[TamilNet, Friday, 18 March 2011, 10:26 GMT]
Sri Lanka government is yet to provide clarification on 5,653 outstanding cases of disappeared persons and it has not responded positively to requests to visit the country in this regard by UN Rapporteurs, said Pooja Patel, while delivering her oral statement on behalf of Asian Forum for Human Rights and Development (FORUM –ASIA) in the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) in Geneva on Tuesday. Increased militarization in the Northeast has created an environment of intense insecurity for resettled communities especially for female-headed families who are particularly vulnerable to sexual exploitation and abuse, Ms. Patel pointed out.
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Sri Lanka has sinister plans in confiscating lands of Mu’l’livaaykkaal

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 15 March 2011, 05:46 GMT]
Sri Lanka has sinister plans to confiscate the three large coastal villages, Mu’l’livaaykkaal East, Mu’l’livaaykkaal West and Ampalavan Pokka’nai, where the last stages of the Vanni war took place. Original inhabitants of 18 hamlets of the villages are not allowed to resettle and there are secret plans to relocate them to confiscate the stretch of rich marine wealth, said a press release of the Tamil National People’s Front (TNPF). Mines are still the pretext, but even after 22 months the SL military has not even permitted de-mining the land where thousands of Eezham Tamils and their fighters sacrificed their lives. Meanwhile, with Chinese assistance, colonial SL occupying the country of Eezham Tamils has recently built a fortress-like military base over a cemetery of the LTTE heroes at Koappaay in Jaffna.
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Resettled families in Valikaamam North lack infrastructure facilities

[TamilNet, Sunday, 13 March 2011, 10:23 GMT]
Unless infrastructure facilities are made available to the people, the resettlement could take place only at snail’s pace in Jaffna peninsula, Thellippazhai Divisional Secretary S.Muralitharan responded to reporters who questioned him on the restrictions prevailing there. Currently, the occupying Sri Lankan military is limiting the freedom of movement of civilians to their native villages by keeping the access roads to resettlement areas closed most of the time and is only allowing them to use the roads for few days in a week.
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