24th Anniversary of the massacre of 320 Tamils in Batticaloa remembered

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 10 November 2010, 16:32 GMT]
The massacre of 320 innocent Tamils of Pullumalai in Batticaloa district on 10.11.1986 by Sri Lanka Army (SLA) and Sinhala thugs was remembered Wednesday by the people of Batticaloa district. The SLA soldiers and the Sinhala thugs who brutally massacred the 320 Tamils were not arrested during the United National Party (UNP) government then and the present United People’s Freedom Alliance (UPFA) too has failed to take action on them or to pay compensation for the affected or find the disappeared persons, sources in Batticaloa said. Complaints made by the victims’ family members to Sri Lanka President’s Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Committee (LLRC) recently in Chengkaladi Secretariat were not registered, the sources added.
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SLA forced to engage soldiers in civil work in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 09 November 2010, 17:18 GMT]
Sri Lanka Army (SLA) authorities in Jaffna are forced to engage soldiers in civil work to stop them from deserting the army and because they are unable to allocate military duties for the thousands of soldiers in the North, sources in Jaffna said. Hundreds of soldiers have been deployed in renovation and cleaning work while some of them are employed in food stalls and hair dressing saloons. The soldiers, particularly those in Vanni, due to malaria and forced to be in deserted places are reluctant to serve there, a SLA officer said. Many of them have failed to return after vacation, he added. Most of the soldiers suffer from fatigue and a sense of frustration, sources in Jaffna said.
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Sarvodaya officials in North accused of swindle

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 09 November 2010, 08:47 GMT]
The farmers among the resettled families in Vanni accuse the officials of Sarvodaya for having sold them inferior quality seeds at a high price making huge profits for themselves, sources in Vanni said. The Sarvodaya officials buying black grams and other grains whole sale in Colombo market at low prices sell them in packets as quality seeds at high prices, the sources added. Meanwhile, the agricultural implements issued to the resettled people in Vanni are found to be of poor quality and unsuitable for use in Vanni, the sources said. The people of Vanni already rendered destitute by the war on Vanni are further cheated by unscrupulous men in organizations like Sarvodaya, the sources in Vanni said.
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PTF insists NGOs in North to engage only in construction of houses

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 09 November 2010, 08:19 GMT]
The Secretary of the President’s Task Force (PTF) in Sri Lanka, S. P. Divaratne, in an urgent circular to the Government Agents in the North instructed them not to entertain any new proposals of projects submitted by the Non-government Organizations (NGOs) functioning in the North but to insist on them to concentrate on housing projects in the war affected Vanni instead, sources in Jaffna said. Amidst accusations that Sri Lanka government is reluctant to accept the Indian government’s offer to build 50,000 houses in Vanni the PTF insisting on NGOs to only engage in constructing houses in Vanni is seen as a ploy to deflect India’s presence in Vanni, NGO circles in Vanni said.
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Muslim families to be resettled in Jaffna soon – Jaffna GA

[TamilNet, Sunday, 07 November 2010, 06:01 GMT]
“The Muslim families evacuated from Jaffna 20 year ago will be soon resettled in their own places,” Jaffna Government Agent (GA), Ms. Imelda Sukumar said in an event held in Jaffna Osmania College Saturday. The event was organized by more than ten Muslim organizations in Jaffna in memory of the evacuation in 1990, sources in Jaffna said. Imelda Sukumar saying in the event that Sri Lanka government is correct in asserting that there is no place in Sri Lanka for any race to claim exclusive rights to it, has raised controversy among the people of Jaffna. She had previously said that there were no High Security Zones in Jaffna peninsula but only areas which have not been de-mined, a statement contrary to the truth, the sources added.
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Ki'n'niyaa resettled Muslims protest against police brutality

[TamilNet, Friday, 05 November 2010, 17:52 GMT]
Hundreds of Tamil-speaking Muslims Friday held a demonstration after Jumma Prayers at Buhary junction in Ki'n'niyaa town against the destruction of huts and crops of more than thirty five resettled Muslim people in Ka'ndal-kaadu by the police. They carried placards condemning the brutality of the Police.
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SLA blocks access road to resettled areas in Vadamaraadchi East

[TamilNet, Thursday, 04 November 2010, 05:52 GMT]
Sri Lanka Army (SLA) occupying Vadamaraadchi East has blocked Point Pedro-Maruthangkea’ni road, the main access road to Vadamaraadchi East where nearly 6,000 uprooted persons were resettled recently, Non-government Organizations (NGO) representatives in Jaffna said. The resettled families suffering without any help from Sri Lanka government after being allowed to resettle depend entirely on NGOs for their sustenance. The access road, opened with much publicity by SLA and Sri Lanka minister Douglas Devananda when the people were resettled, was later blocked for public. Government officials and NGOs, however, were allowed to use the road. But SLA has now blocked the road even to them. The NGOs are forced to suspend or abandon their assistance to the resettled families due to the closure of the main access road by SLA.
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SLA soldiers try to evict resettled Tamil families in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 02 November 2010, 17:40 GMT]
A group of Tamil National Alliance (TNA) members of Jaffna Municipal Council who visited Tuesday the resettled Tamil families in Vasanthapuram, Ma’niam Thoaddam area in Jaffna said that the families complained to them that Sri Lanka Army (SLA) soldiers are trying to evict them saying that the area has not been cleared of landmines. Meanwhile, Sri Lanka government has decided to settle the Sinhala families claiming resettlement in Jaffna on the coastal areas of Jaffna Fort and Ma’niam Thoaddam in Kozhumpuththu’rai, sources in Jaffna said. SLA claiming the area to be infested with landmines is seen as a ploy to evict the Tamil families so as to make room for the Sinhala families to settle there, the sources added.
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CaFFE urges proper registration of detained voters in camps

[TamilNet, Monday, 01 November 2010, 15:33 GMT]
The Campaign for Free and Fair Elections (CaFFE) in a statement urged Sri Lanka Department of Elections to implement a proper program to register the persons above the age of eighteen now held in the detention centers in the North including Menik Farm, in the 2010 voters’ list revising process. The voter registration process in many parts of the North is in its final stages right now.
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Police forcibly evict Muslim resettled families in Trincomalee

[TamilNet, Monday, 01 November 2010, 15:24 GMT]
A team of Sri Lanka police personnel from Trincomalee police station Sunday morning forcibly evicted thirty-five resettled Muslim families in Ka’ndalkaadu in Ki’n’niyaa Divisional Secretariat (DS) division in Trincomalee district from their dwellings and burnt their temporary huts, directed by top civil authority in Trincomalee. The vegetable plots in the premises of the resettled families were also damaged by the police team, according to complaints by affected families to civil authority in Ki’n’niyaa, sources said.
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German parliamentary delegation to visit Sri Lanka

[TamilNet, Sunday, 31 October 2010, 11:15 GMT]
A German Parliamentary delegation headed by Dagmar Ernstberger, Chairperson of the Parliamentary Group on South Asia, will arrive in Colombo Tuesday on a four day visit for the first time after the end of the war to obtain a first-hand impression on progress made and of challenges ahead. The main objective is to gain first-hand experience on post conflict development activities in the country. They will also visit the Northern Province and inspect the de-mining activities and resettled villages, the German Embassy sources in Colombo said.
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Resettled families in North suffer without basic medical facilities

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 26 October 2010, 06:00 GMT]
The female patients of the families allowed to resettle in Ki’linochchi district are forced to travel a long distance to Jaffna or Vavuniyaa as there is no female medical specialist in Ki’linochchi government hospital, hospital sources said. Meanwhile, there is no hospital at all in Vadamaraadchi East where more than six thousand uprooted people had been allowed to resettle and the people have to come to Jaffna Teaching Hospital for treatment of all kinds of illness travelling a long distance, sources in Jaffna said. Sri Lanka government which says that it is gradually improving medical services in the North has failed to provide even the basic medical facilities to the resettled people in Vanni and Vadmaraadchi East, the sources further said.
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SLA soldiers chase away resettled Tamil families in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 26 October 2010, 05:41 GMT]
Nearly a hundred Sri Lanka Army (SLA) soldiers chased away Monday night more than fifty Tamil families who had returned after fifteen years to resettle in their lands in Vasanthapuram village in Ma’niam Thoaddam area located within Jaffna Municipal Council limits, sources in Jaffna said. The Sinhala families from South who had recently come to Jaffna seeking resettlement demand to be settled in Ma’niam Thoaddam which they claim as the lands of ancient Sinhala people, the sources added. The uprooted Tamil families had come to their lands Saturday and begun constructing sheds to live in.
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2000 sq.kms in North remain to be de-mined - SLA

[TamilNet, Friday, 22 October 2010, 09:20 GMT]
More than two thousand square kilometers (sq.km) of land in the Northern Province have to be cleared from land mines. About 1800 sq.kms have been cleared so far, Sri Lanka’s military spokesman Ubaya Madawela claimed.
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Uprooted families due to SLA offensives in East denied assistance

[TamilNet, Saturday, 16 October 2010, 06:48 GMT]
Vanthaa’rumoolai Village Development Society president, bearing witness before Sri Lanka President’s Lessons Learnt & Reconciliation Committee (LLRC) in Chengkaladi Divisional Secretariat in Batticaloa said that even basic facilities are denied to the families uprooted by Sri Lanka Army (SLA) offensives, now resettled. Ms. Subramaniam Vijayaladchumy, the president, told the LLRC that paddy fields and lands of Tamils in Chengkaladi Divisional Secretariat area are being encroached by Muslims and requested the LLRC to take action to stop the encroachment.
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Resettled families in Vanni suffer without adequate transport

[TamilNet, Saturday, 09 October 2010, 05:35 GMT]
The resettled families in Vanni are facing great difficulty without adequate transport facilities as Sri Lanka government had not done anything to meet the transport facility needs of the people resettled in villages in Vanni located far apart, sources in Vanni said. The government run Sri Lanka Transport Board (SLTB) had abandoned its depots in Vanni for the last twenty years and the limited number of buses allocated to Vanni after the war is hardly enough to serve the residents of Vanni, Ki’linochchi SLTB officials said.
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Sinhala men continue to intimidate Tamil cultivators in Eastern Province

[TamilNet, Thursday, 07 October 2010, 08:14 GMT]
Sinhala men continue to intimidate the Tamil cultivators in the Tamil villages located on the boundaries of the districts of Batticaloa and Ampaa’rai in Eastern Province preventing them from cultivating their paddy fields, P. Selvarasa, Batticaloa district Tamil National Alliance parliamentarian said. The Tamil cultivators uprooted from their villages due to war had resettled in their places after a period of 25 years during which the Sinhala men from their neighboring villages had appropriated most of their paddy fields, he said. Recently, Sinhala men had attacked two Tamil cultivators and chased them away from their own properties, the MP further said. No action has been taken on this issue though the TNA parliamentarians of Batticaloa district has brought it to the notice of it to the Government Agent of Batticaloa, he said.
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SLA closes access road to resettled families in Vaadmaraadchi East

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 05 October 2010, 04:56 GMT]
Sri Lanka Army (SLA) in Jaffna has closed Point Pedro- Maruhthangkea’ni road in Vadamaraadchi East where uprooted families from Kudaththanai and Raamaavil camps had been taken to be resettled. Recently, the road had been opened with great publicity by Sri Lanka government allowing public to use the road from 7:00 a.m to 5:00 p.m daily. But now SLA authorities have closed the road for public use. SLA and government officers, however, are permitted to use it, sources in Vadamaraadchi said.
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EPDP Thinamurasu published as daily paper in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Saturday, 02 October 2010, 03:14 GMT]
Thinamurasu, the Eealam People’s Democratic Party (EPDP) weekly that was published in Colombo and issued in Jaffna peninsula by EPDP leader and Sri Lanka minister Douglas Devananda was released in Jaffna Friday as a daily when he opened his press located in Chu’ndikkuzhi on Jaffna main road. It is alleged that Douglas Devananda had coerced the editors and workers of former ‘Namathu Eezhanaadu’ daily which had stopped publishing, into working in his newly opened press, local media sources said.
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SL government imposes restrictions on local NGOs in North, East

[TamilNet, Thursday, 23 September 2010, 03:25 GMT]
Local Non-government Organizations (NGOs) in North and East in Sri Lanka face the risk of becoming inactive due Sri Lanka government’s new restrictions on registering or renewing the registration of such organizations, NGO circles said. These NGOs should submit applications to register themselves or to renew registration to Sri Lanka President’s Action Committee and Sri Lanka Defence Ministry for their approval to function, according to the new procedure imposed on them. The local NGOs serve local people in need with the assistance of International Organizations. Securing the required approval of the above authorities is not easy as Sri Lanka government generally views the local NGOs as agencies of foreign elements opposed to it, NGO circles in Jaffna said.
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