Illiberal democracy

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 18 October 2006, 16:08 GMT]
The electoral democracy in Sri Lanka, bolstered by regularly held "open, free and fair" elections, is often characterized as robust and vibrant by the international community. However, Sri Lanka has been plagued by decades of ethnic violence. Discriminatory legislation and a politicized judiciary have bred inequality, failed to deliver social justice, and have raised explosive issues related to sovereignty in the multi-cultural state. Reasons for Sri Lanka gaining increasing notoriety as a violator of international norms in human rights, and the State emerging as a killing field, can be traced to its polity's gradual, inexorable shift towards an illiberal democracy.
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Woman, auto driver shot dead in Jaffna peninsula

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 04 October 2006, 22:24 GMT]
Unidentified armed men shot dead a 50 year old woman, Ms. Thurainayagam Jeyamalar allias Kuttiyamman, at Urikadu in Valvettithurai, around 8.30 a.m Wednesday. Seperatley, an auto-rikshaw driver was shot dead at Adiyapatham road in Kokuvil, Wednesday afternoon.
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Former RAW chief protests India’s ‘ambivalence’ over LTTE

[TamilNet, Sunday, 01 October 2006, 11:41 GMT]
India’s former spy chief has criticised Delhi for not engaging with the both the Liberation Tigers and Sri Lanka’s government to prevent the slide into conflict. "India's inability to fully comprehend the ground realities in Sri Lanka and, hamstrung by the past, its reluctance to do business with LTTE to help evolve an equitable settlement may prove to be a monumental foreign policy blunder,” J.K. Sinha, former head of India’s external intelligence agency said.
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Sri Lanka's military conducting slow pogrom - paper

[TamilNet, Friday, 01 September 2006, 10:36 GMT]
The deliberate displacement of over 160,000 Tamils by Sri Lankan military offensives and attacks this year combined with the purposeful blocking of food, medicine and relief supplies amounts to a 'slow pogrom' of the Tamils, the Tamil Guardian newspaper argued in its latest editorial. "Whilst trotting out the tired counter-insurgency rhetoric of 'hearts and minds' and a glib insistence that Tigers, not Tamils, are the target, Sri Lanka's military has always been ready to punish the Tamils for the LTTE's violence," the paper said.
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Judicious political pressure saves journalist

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 30 August 2006, 07:42 GMT]
Political pressure from Sri Lanka's main opposition United National Party (UNP), parties allied with Sri Lanka President Mahinda Rajapakse, including the paramilitary Eelam People’s Democratic Party (EPDP) and the timely action by the top leadership of the Asian Broadcasting Coorperation to mobilise political pressure saved the life of Kuruparan Nadarajah, the Tamil news manager of Sooriyan FM, who was being interrogated after being abducted by the Special Counter-terrorism Unit of Sri Lankan military intelligence, sources said.
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No support for anti-trade union government, says JVP

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 01 August 2006, 06:25 GMT]
The Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP), the Sinhala extreme nationalist party that holds 38 seats in the Sri Lankan parliament, on Manday said it would withdraw its support to the United Peoples' Freedom Alliance (UPFA) government if it suppresses trade union rights.
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"Death Won't Deter Us," - Diaspora Tamils mark 83 Black July Genocide

[TamilNet, Monday, 24 July 2006, 09:28 GMT]
The 1983 Black July anti-Tamil pogroms in which more than 3000 Tamils were killed and billions of rupees worth of property were destroyed by Sinhala thugs, sections of Sri Lankan armed forces, and ruling UNP party cadres, fuelled the Tamil armed struggle towards a defensible Tamil homeland. Thousands of Tamils fled the island to Tamil Nadu state in India, Europe and elsewhere. The recent extra-judicial killings in Sri Lanka Army (SLA) controlled areas in the NorthEast, during the Cease Fire Agreement (CFA), have added significance to the widespread observance by the Tamil diaspora of the 23rd year remembrance of the anti-Tamil pogroms.
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APC, a political drama to dress-up unitary constitution - LTTE

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 19 July 2006, 10:26 GMT]
The All Party Conference (APC) on constitutional reforms initiated by Sri Lanka’s President Mahinda Rajapakse follows the same approach used by previous Sinhala Presidents, Jeyawardhene, Premadasa, and Chandrika Kumaratunge. APC is a recurring tactic used by Sri Lanka's Presidents to present a peace posture to placate the international community while refusing to reconfigure the polity from the rigid and majoritarian Unitary constitution, said the latest edition of the official periodical of the Liberation Tigers, “Viduthalaipulikal,” printed in Kilinochchi.
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Rajapakse's new agenda, a tactic to derail progress towards Geneva II- Kaviyalahan

[TamilNet, Sunday, 16 July 2006, 15:26 GMT]
The Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapakse, upon failing to meet the committments given by Sri Lanka delegation at Geneva I, has adopted a "choking tactic" to stifle current trajectory towards peace by launching a one-sided expert panel, to waylay the International Community, and to avoid Geneva II, said K. Kaviyalahan, the Head of Tamileelam Political Research Centre (TEPRC), the emerging Think Tank of the Liberation Tigers, in the weekly political analysis programme, Nilavaram, aired by the National Television of Tamileelam (NTT) Sunday night. Rajapaskse's new agenda circumvents the existing paradigm of the four and a half years old peace process, he argued.
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SLN soldiers falsely implicate Mannar fisherman

[TamilNet, Friday, 23 June 2006, 15:59 GMT]
Mr.Anthony Balashankar, 35, Tamil fisherman and a father of five children, was arrested Thursday evening by the Sri Lanka Navy falsely implicating him that he was in possession of a grenade. The fisherman was produced in Mannar court Friday evening on a report that he was carrying a grenade with him at the time of arrest by the SLN soldiers. Additional Magistrate Mr.T.J.Pirapaharan remanded him till July 28, legal sources said.
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Valaichenai teacher succumbs to gunshot injuries

[TamilNet, Friday, 09 June 2006, 09:34 GMT]
Yogaraj Satheeswaran 25, admitted to the Intensive Care Unit of the Batticaloa Teaching hospital on being shot and seriously injured by unknown men on Tuesday the 6th of June succumbed to his wounds Wednesday evening, Valaichenai sources said.
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Curbing diaspora support counter-productive, say Finnish Tamils

[TamilNet, Monday, 29 May 2006, 13:11 GMT]
The representatives of the Tamil organisations in Finland, who met the Finnish Ministry of Foreign Affairs officials, after marching 2 km from the Helsinki EU office to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs at Merikasarminkatu Monday noon, told media that Norway which skillfully executed the facilitator role during the challenging internal opposition from the Sinhala extreme nationalist parties, was now being alienated by the external factors arising from the EU's move to ban the LTTE. More than 170 Tamils took part in Finland where a 250 Tamils live.
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Tamil schools receive circulars, official communications in Sinhala

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 23 May 2006, 14:08 GMT]
Tamil medium schools in Sri Lanka have been receiving circulars and other official documents from the Central Ministry of Education in Colombo in Sinhalese language only. No translation is provided because 99% of clerks in all eighteen branches of the Ministry of Education are Sinhalese, a senior ministry official said.


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Stop violence, enter talks, Anti-war group tells GoSL, LTTE

[TamilNet, Thursday, 18 May 2006, 11:29 GMT]
Condemning the increasing levels of violence committed by Liberation Tigers and by the "armed groups and forces within and outside" Sri Lanka's Military, Kumar Rupesinghe, chairman of National Anti War Front, in a press release issued Thursday in Colombo urged the LTTE and the Government of Sri Lanka to "implement the agreements reached in the High Table in Geneva," and to "immediately resume the talks which were initiated in Geneva."
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Colombo lacks realpolitik strategy- Furuhovde

[TamilNet, Friday, 12 May 2006, 04:32 GMT]
The present situation in Sri Lanka is mainly caused by Colombo's reluctant approach for a peace based on negotiations involving concessions. Central political players and its Military leadership still believe a military solution to the conflict is possible. This reflects a dangerous perception of reality and lacks a "Realpolitik strategic basis," required to handle Sri Lanka's war, wrote late Maj. Gen. (retd) Trond Furuhovde in a comment he wrote under the title "The troubled Sri Lanka" in Norwegian daily Adressa on January 30, a few days before Geneva-I talks. He touches on the geopolitical significance of the Sea route and the geographic location of the island Sri Lanka in his article.
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SLA trooper injured in grenade attack in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Friday, 12 May 2006, 04:30 GMT]
A Sri Lanka Army (SLA) trooper was seriously injured in a hand grenade attack on the SLA street patrol unit by an unidentified person at Urikadu on the Valvettiturai- Thondaimanaru road in Jaffna Thursday around 12 noon, sources in Jaffna said. The injured soldier was rushed to Palaly military hospital, said sources from Valvettithurai.


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Three attacks in Jaffna, policeman, SLA soldier killed

[TamilNet, Friday, 05 May 2006, 10:39 GMT]
One Pollice constable was killed on the spot and two police officers seriously injured in a claymore explosion along Point Pedro, Jaffna Road in Puraporukki in Vadamaradchy district at 3.45 p.m.Friday, sources in Jaffna said. Meanwhile, in Urikadu, Valvettiturai (VVT) one Sri Lanka Army (SLA) soldier has been reported killed, one soldier and a policeman were wounded, in a grenade attack around 12 noon by unknown men. Another attack on SLA troopers was reported at 4:45 p.m. at Maruthanarmadam in Valikamam.
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ITAK administration in Trinco UC begins

[TamilNet, Thursday, 20 April 2006, 15:09 GMT]
Mr. S.Gowrimuhunthan of Ilankai Tamil Arasu Kadchchi (ITAK) Thursday took oath as the Chairman of the twelve-member Trincomalee Urban Council and Mr. Kanthasamy Selvarajah Vice-Chairman. Mr.K.Sivapalan, senior attorney-at-law administered oaths to all the twelve members of the Trincomalee UC in Tamil language at an event held in Trincomalee Town Hall in the presence of religious leaders of all the four faiths, sources said.
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Trincomalee UC to function from Thursday

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 19 April 2006, 10:56 GMT]
Elected administration of the Trincomalee Urban Council is to function from Thursday morning with Mr.Shanmugarajah Gowrimuhunthan and Mr. Kanthasamy Selvarajah of the Ilankai Tamil Arasu Kadchchi (ITAK) taking oaths as Chairman and Vice-Chairman respectively, local government sources in Trincomalee said.
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Tamil, Muslim candidates elected to Trincomalee UC

[TamilNet, Friday, 31 March 2006, 20:13 GMT]
No Sinhalese has been elected a member to the Trincomalee Urban Council in the election held Thursday. The newly elected council, which is to start functioning from April 15, will have twelve members- 10 from the Ilankai Tamil Arasu Katchi (ITAK) and 2 from the Independent Group. Of the twelve members nine are Tamil members and three are Muslims. The ITAK fielded fourteen Tamils and two Muslims for the Trincomalee UC. Out of them nine Tamils and a Muslim got elected on preferential votes.
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