Uprooted Tamils from Puthukkudiyiruppu still strive for resettlement

[TamilNet, Thursday, 10 March 2011, 19:41 GMT]
Large number of Tamil families from Mullaiththeevu district of Vanni, forcibly displaced and still held behind barbed wire camps in Menik Farm and other places, are yet to be allowed into their native villages in Puthukkudiyiruppu. The occupying Sri Lankan military has only allowed civilians to enter 6 of 19 Village Officer (GS) divisions in Puthukkudiyiruppu. So far, Only 68,846 persons from 23,050 families have been resettled in 65 out of 92 Village Officer divisions in Mullaiththeevu district. Thirty percent of the civilians are not allowed to resettle in the entire district of Mullaiththeevu, according to the data from the Mullaiththeevu District Secretariat.
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Resettled Muslims in Jaffna fast against SL negligence

[TamilNet, Thursday, 10 March 2011, 08:12 GMT]
Muslims resettled in Jaffna city entered into a fasting protest in rotation on Tuesday, against SL negligence in providing basic facilities for their living. Around 100 Muslims of Puthiya Choanaka Theru sat fasting for the second day and they were joined with the Muslims of Pommai Ve’li, an adjacent suburb in low-lying land. Sometimes back, resettled Muslims of Mannaar too, facing similar difficulties, made protests.
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Police arrest resettled ex-LTTE cadres in Batticaloa

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 15 February 2011, 00:29 GMT]
Tamil youths who are reported to have left the LTTE and returned to normal life after marriage are being arrested by the Sri Lanka Police in the Batticaloa district. Such arrests are said to be on the increase in Paduvaangkarai region. Tamil residents are not coming forward to make complaints to higher authorities due to fear and reprisals, civil sources said.
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Seek pragmatic changes, not focus entirely on war-crimes accountability, says Donald Camp

[TamilNet, Saturday, 12 February 2011, 16:39 GMT]
Former Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asia, Donald Camp, in a seminar held at the US think-tank, American Enterprise Institute, said while everyone was appalled at the events during the final stages of war, focusing entirely on accountability and prosecution will not be pragmatic, as the Rajapakse Government will not allow any investigations to take place. Instead, Camp advocates helping Rajapakse to "do the right thing." Camp, without saying how, mentioned "decentralization of powers," "co-ordinating with the UN Panel," and "reducing security presence in Jaffna," as possible actions that Rajapakse should be assisted to take to capitalize on the post war environment.
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Local elections likely to be postponed

[TamilNet, Thursday, 10 February 2011, 23:44 GMT]
Sri Lankan Department of Elections has said it was considering requests made by political parties to postpone the local elections until hundreds of thousands of families displaced due to recent floods are resettled and resume their day to day normal life in their villages and towns.
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Mannaar severely affected by overflowing water from Anuradhapura tanks

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 08 February 2011, 23:32 GMT]
Mannaar district has been facing a severe natural calamity for the first time in its history due to recent rain and flood. Almost all the villages in the district are under water. 7,807 persons from 2,667 families have been displaced from areas that come under Mannaar Urban Council and Naanaaddaan Piratheasa Chapai (PS). People from Arippu and Maanthai have been trapped in their houses as they are marooned in the flood. The Government Agent of Mannaar, N.Vedhanayagam, has declared emergency situation in the district.
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‘Nazi-style registration of civilians in Jaffna’

[TamilNet, Sunday, 06 February 2011, 12:08 GMT]
The occupying SL military in Jaffna is directly engaged in registration of individuals and families in the Jaffna peninsula in recent times. Everyday, covering area by area, the SL military is distributing forms to collect information and is insisting of family photographs along with children to be given to them. The activity of the SL military, reminding the Nazi practice before the Holocaust, creates terror in the minds of the people in Jaffna, said a human rights activist in Jaffna. Meanwhile, undeclared curfew is imposed in Jaffna by the SL military and police, who have brought the street movement of people almost to an end after 6:00 p.m. by harassing them through numerous checkpoints after dusk.
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Sinhala colonization threatens fishermen of Vanni

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 01 February 2011, 23:47 GMT]
The number of Sinhala fishermen from South, camping close to Sri Lanka Army and Sri Lanka Navy camps in the SL occupied Vadamaraadchi East and Mullaiththeevu, has doubled within a short period in the recent weeks, causing alarm among the fishermen associations of resettled Tamil fishermen. Commanders of the occupying Sri Lankan military have become brokers bringing in hundreds of fishermen from south and allowing them to operate from coastal areas where Tamil civilians are denied resettlement, complained representatives of fishermen societies in Vadamaraadchi East to media on Tuesday.
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Hasty Sinhala colonisation wedges north and east at Kokku’laay

[TamilNet, Monday, 31 January 2011, 12:40 GMT]
Within the last three weeks, 240 Sinhala families were hastily settled at Kokku’laay, a narrow strip of land, which is the only link of contiguity between the northern and eastern flanks of the country of Eezham Tamils in the island. This pivotal conspiracy of Colombo to demographically de-link the contiguity of the two Tamil provinces is being implemented by SL colonial governor in the north, Maj. Gen. Chandrasri and by SL ‘Rehabilitation’ minister Rishard Baddiudeen. Colombo lies that it is only ‘resettlement’ of Sinhalese, but except one or two families others are outsiders and the 43 original Tamil families resettled among Sinhalese now live in fear. The demographic wedging takes place at a time when New Delhi, advocating ‘home grown’ solution, is allegedly engaged in pressurizing Tamil politicians to commit to the de-link through their own mouth.
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Father, son abducted in Vadamaraadchi

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 26 January 2011, 12:05 GMT]
A recently released man from SLA internment camp in Vavuniyaa in his early 30s and resettled with his father at Polika'ndi in Vadmaraadchi, Jaffna, has been abducted, according to human rights activists in the region. A few days after the abduction of the son, his father too was abducted by armed men who came in a white van. The family of the abducted remains silent as they had been threatened not to complain or talk to media, the sources further said.
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SL military, southern traders, encourage child labour in Vanni

[TamilNet, Thursday, 20 January 2011, 07:57 GMT]
Children have become scavengers of scrap metal for their livelihood in the war ravaged Vanni and this ‘economic activity’ finds the blessings of occupying military and re-cycling metal traders coming from the south. Damaged and abandoned vehicles, fittings of un-resettled houses and other buildings, and other vestiges of war are targeted for this trade that actively deploys children to collect the metal. Such conditions of child abuse is a direct result of international community conceding a nation ‘conquered’ in a civil war to the genocidal conquerors and its military. None of those who were talking of ‘child soldiers’ earlier come forward to help the situation now, commented an NGO worker in Vanni. He made a particular note of UNICEF inaction.
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Colombo fails to provide resettlement assistance to N-E families

[TamilNet, Sunday, 16 January 2011, 14:59 GMT]
Majority of resettled families in the North and East have been waiting for the promised resettlement assistance from the Government of Sri Lanka (GOSL). According to reports compiled by the authorities concerned that not every family has received assistance as promised. Under the resettlement package each family is entitled to a cash grant Rs.5000, Bank of Ceylon grant of Rs.20,000 and agricultural implements, kitchen utensils, bags of cement roofing sheets and tarpaulin. Each family is also promised a set of non-food items.
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Floods: Batticaloa hardest hit, EU, India, US pledge aid

[TamilNet, Saturday, 15 January 2011, 14:45 GMT]
The European Union and the United States joined India in pledging emergency assistance following the massive flooding that has submerged large parts of Sri Lanka and displaced over a million people. The hardest hit region is the war-shattered Batticaloa district, officials said. The EU is providing $2.7m in assistance to be distributed through international aid agencies, AFP reported. India will provide $1m, including 34 tons of emergency supplies airlifted to Colombo Friday. The US is donating $300,000 for areas hardest-hit by the floods, including boats to local authorities in Batticaloa. The United Nations meanwhile, says it would make an emergency appeal in the coming days to seek millions of dollars to meet life-saving needs.
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Five children orphaned as 'abducted' father found dead

[TamilNet, Friday, 14 January 2011, 12:41 GMT]
The identity of the dead body, recovered from an abandoned well at Yoakapuram in Koappaay in a highly decomposed state, was concluded as that of Mahalingam Amirtharajah, a father of five children, reported missing since January 01. Mr. Amirtharajah who was earlier living in Vanni resettled at Yoakapuram, after having lost his wife in Sri Lanka Army shelling the war, and after going through the internment camp in Cheddiku'lam. He resettled with his children at his sister's house at Yoakapuram.
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Further oppression expected as SL Army takes over islands off Jaffna from SL Navy

[TamilNet, Thursday, 13 January 2011, 21:23 GMT]
The Sri Lanka Army occupying Jaffna will take over the islands off Jaffna from the occupying SL Navy, an Army spokesman announced in Jaffna Thursday. Since 1990s the control of the islands off the Jaffna Peninsula was vested with the occupying Navy of colonial Sri Lanka. Extensive new bases are now being built for the army next to the establishments of the SL Navy in the islands. Fear engulfs the people of the islands as the Army is insisting on fresh registration of people in addition to earlier registration of them with the SL Navy. Pungkudutheevu Island has become the new centre for the Army’s extensive establishment.
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Gang disguised as policemen assault Champoor civil officer

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 11 January 2011, 13:53 GMT]
Kumaraswamy Nageswaran, President of the Association of Champoor Uprooted Tamil Families, was assaulted by a group of unidentified gang posing as police personnel on Sunday night around 11.30 p.m. at Kaddaiparichchan, a resettled village in Moothoor East, according to a complaint by his relatives at Champoor Police Station. Nageswaran sustained severe injuries in his legs, was first taken to the Moothoor base hospital and later transferred to Trincomalee general hospital Monday morning.
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Five of six Mannaar abductees released, Colombo involvement exposed

[TamilNet, Monday, 10 January 2011, 08:40 GMT]
Five of six civilians abducted from Mannaar on Thursday, including Jazeel Jaharil whose abduction created confrontation between the abductors and his relatives exposing the squads link with Sri Lankan military, returned Friday evening from Colombo and were handed over to their relatives Saturday early morning by the Sri Lankan Police. Earlier reports said 4 persons were abducted on Thursday. But, according to latest information 6 persons were abducted that day. No information is available about the other person, Mr. Sasi, who is also reported missing on Thursday.
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SLA commanders target women in North for garments industry in South

[TamilNet, Monday, 10 January 2011, 04:44 GMT]
Sri Lanka Army commanders in North have been campaigning among the rural populations in the North that they were offering employment to Tamil women in the garments industry in the South. Women's Development Centre, Jaffna, and gender equality groups such as Paalnilai Chamaththuva Amaippu have urged residents in the North to be aware that such offers targeting women are being made without any guarantees of transparency or contracts, sources in Jaffna said.
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Trincomalee, Batticaloa flooded

[TamilNet, Monday, 10 January 2011, 03:39 GMT]
Heavy rain fall since Saturday night has brought the normal life in the three districts of East, Trincomalee, Batticaloa and Ampaarai, to standstill and almost all the villages including DS offices are under water. According to latest figures, in Batticaloa district alone 421,851 persons from 112,039 families have been affected. The two districts, Trincomalee and Batticaloa, were experiencing heavy rain with strong winds till Sunday evening amid fears that it might develop as a cyclone. Several thousand villagers including uprooted and sheltered in transit camps in Trincomalee district awaiting resettlement in Champoor in Moothoor East are again displaced and sought refuge at various places and desperation prevails in many divisions of the Eastern Province.
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Heavy rains in East, 600,000 affected

[TamilNet, Monday, 10 January 2011, 03:28 GMT]
The three districts of Eastern Province, Batticaloa, Ampaa'rai and Trincomalee, have been experiencing heavy rains beginning from the second week of December last year and about six hundred thousand members of 160,000 families have been affected, according to officials attached to the Disaster Management Ministry (DMM). In Batticaloa district alone 360,000 persons have been affected. Batticaloa District Secretary has appealed to the DMM hierarchy to take immediate steps to provide dry rations to all affected people whether they are displaced or not as their livelihood had been affected due to inclement weather.
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