SLA in Vanni harass hapless resettled families

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 11 August 2010, 19:01 GMT]
Sri Lanka Army (SLA) soldiers occupying Vanni are forcibly evacuating resettled uprooted families from their houses and lands on charges that they are supporters of Liberation Tigers and demand money to be allowed to live in their properties which they have managed to make livable, according to many complaints made to Vavuniyaa Human Rights Commission (HRC) office. The complainants, mainly women whose male members of their families had been killed or arrested and detained by SLA, say that members of certain organizations who maintain close relations with SLA soldiers assist them in this racket in which local SLA officers get a major share. In order to exhort money the SLA soldiers claim that the lands are needed for their own use.
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EPDP monopoly in the distribution of relief ration hits uprooted familes in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 11 August 2010, 05:24 GMT]
Seventy percent of the familes uprooted during war and resettled in Jaffna peninsula depend on the dry food relief ration redistributed by agencies which obtain the contract of distribution through Sri Lanka government tenders. Jaffna Traders' Assocaition (JTA) circles allege that a particular trader acting as an agent of Sri Lanka minister Douglas Devananda, leader of Eelam People's Democratic Party (EPDP), has obtained the distribution tenders using the letter heads of more than three agencies and that the procedure of calling for tenders by Jaffna Secretariat is explotied by him to the disadvantage of other bidders. The dry food relief ration distributed to the uprooted families by the said trader is very poor in quality as the food items supplied by Jaffna Secretariat to him are sold in black market, JTA sources said.
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2 Indian High Commission officials on sudden visit to Jaffna

[TamilNet, Monday, 09 August 2010, 19:05 GMT]
Two key officials of the Indian High Commission to Sri Lanka in Colombo visited Jaffna Monday and held talks with high officers of Sri Lanka Amy (SLA) and police in Jaffna Secretariat. Northern Province Governor Major Gen. G. A. Chandrasiri and Jaffna Government Agent, Ms. Imelda Sukumar participated in this meeting, sources in Jaffna said. The visit of the Indian officials had not been announced and local media was not allowed to cover the meeting.
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Hordes of monkeys plague resettled families in Vanni

[TamilNet, Saturday, 07 August 2010, 05:19 GMT]
Monkeys in Vanni having multiplied in numbers after the war on Vanni invade into the temporary sheds of uprooted families hastily resettled by Sri Lanka government without clearing the area of the overgrown shrubs and jungle, sources in Vanni said. The resettled uprooted families in Vanni left to fend on their own without the needed assistance and subjected to occupying Sri Lanka Army (SLA) harassment are further assailed with the problem and danger of monkeys, the sources added.
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SLA exploits Chinese funds meant for resettlement of uprooted Vanni civilians

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 04 August 2010, 07:27 GMT]
Sri Lanka Army (SLA) occupying Vanni is exploiting funds donated by China for the resettlement of uprooted Vanni people to construct permanent housing schemes for its personnel, in Kokkaavil, located west of A9 road in Vanni, civil society organizations in K'linochchi said. Uprooted civilians forcibly taken by SLA soldiers to work in the constructions said that even two storey buildings are under construction in an area where new roads have been laid. Meanwhile, around 3,000 uprooted families, brought to be resettled in Vanni by Sri Lanka government, continue to live under trees left abandoned while Sri Lanka government exploits international assistance meant for them to settle Sinhalese families from South, Suresh Premachandran, Tamil National Alliance (TNA) parliamentarian said.
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India sending special envoy to assess rehabilitation in North

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 03 August 2010, 23:41 GMT]
A special envoy from the Indian government is scheduled to arrive in Sri Lanka shortly to monitor the progress of the rehabilitation work and resettlement of internally persons in the northern province, the state run Dinamina newspaper said in a front page news article. The visit has been announced subsequent to an appeal made by Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi who wrote to the Indian Premier Manmohan Singh to send a representative from the Indian government to scrutinize the work being carried out in the north and to ascertain whether the work is on schedule.
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Landmines explode in 3 Vanni school surroundings

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 03 August 2010, 04:09 GMT]
Three landmines went off Sunday morning in the surroundings of schools in three separate schools in Ki’linochchi district in Vanni where uprooted families were resettled in Vanni on Sri Lanka Army (SLA) assurance that the areas had been completely de-mined. The landmines exploded when students set fire to waste heaped after cleaning the surrounding area of their schools, sources in Ki’linochchi said.
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Resettled families in Vanni left abandoned in deserted places

[TamilNet, Sunday, 01 August 2010, 13:54 GMT]
Sri Lanka Army (SLA) in Vanni has refused permission to the uprooted families of Kumaarasaamipuram and Mayilvaakanapuram in Ki’linochchi district to resettle in their lands claiming that the area is infested with landmines, sources in Ki’linochchi said. These people were brought from Vavuniyaa SLA Menik Farm camp by Sri Lanka government authorities promising resettlement in their own villages. But now they are left abandoned in deserted places without sufficient food, water, hygienic facilities and safety, the affected civilians said.
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Fate of teenage students disappeared during war on Vanni remains unknown

[TamilNet, Saturday, 31 July 2010, 05:20 GMT]
At least a thousand of the persons disappeared during Sri Lanka government’s war on Vanni are students below the age of eighteen and their families, mostly mothers, have begun a desperate search for their children gone missing after arrest by Sri Lanka Army (SLA) at the end of the war, Education Department sources in Ki’linochchi said. Sri Lanka government has failed to disclose the particulars of the teenage students who had either surrendered or been arrested while humanitarian organizations responsible for tracing persons disappeared have no information on them, the sources added.
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SLA appropriates uprooted civilians’ villages in Vanni

[TamilNet, Saturday, 31 July 2010, 04:43 GMT]
Occupying Sri Lanka Army (SLA) in Vanni has declared the villages of Mayilvaakanapuram and Kumarasaamipuram in Ki’linochchi district not allowed for resettlement as they had been reserved for SLA use, sources in Ki’linochchi said. 140 uprooted families of the two villages brought to be resettled two months back after detention in Vavuniyaa SLA camp by Sri Lankan civil authorities have not been allowed to resettle in their properties.
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SLA interrogates resettled people in K’linochchi following JVP delegation’s visit

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 28 July 2010, 15:14 GMT]
Sri Lanka Army (SLA) soldiers interrogated the residents of Kavuthaarimunai in Poonakari in Ki’linochchi Friday immediately after a delegation of Sinhala Marxist Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) had visited them, Socialist Youth Association (SYA), a front organization of the JVP, claimed in a media statement. The delegation met the resettled people to learn first hand about the true conditions under which they were living.
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Resettled couple in Vanni attempt suicide, husband dies

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 27 July 2010, 16:39 GMT]
A young couple, recently resettled in Ki’linochchi district in Vanni, attempted to kill themselves Sunday. The neighbours rushed them to Ki’linochchi government hospital where the husband died and the wife, transferred to Jaffna Teaching Hospital, is admitted in the Intensive Care Unit. The couple had lost all four of their children during the war in Puthumaaththa’lan, killed in Sri Lanka Army (SLA) shelling on civilians, sources in Ki’linochchi said. Frustration over their children’s death and the loss of all their belongings had driven the couple to attempt suicide, the neighbours said.
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SL government suspends WPF relief measures to resettled people in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 27 July 2010, 06:10 GMT]
Sri Lanka government has suspended the dry food relief supplied under World Food Programme to the recently resettled people in the outskirts of the Sri Lanka Army (SLA) High Security Zone (HSZ) in Vazhalaay near Achchuveali, according to Divisional Secretariat officials who had suspended the supply of dry food rations on instructions from Sri Lanka government authorities.
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NPC cuts funds to Vanni local bodies

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 27 July 2010, 05:44 GMT]
Northern Provincial Council (NPC) is alleged of cutting funds allocated to the local government bodies in Vanni in great measures while these institutions are not in a position to collect revenue from people who had been uprooted and just resettled in Vanni, sources in Vanni said. It is further accused that NPC officials spend the above funds on needless projects to satisfy the whims of Northern Province Governor Major Gen. G. A. Chandrasiri and Sri Lanka government.The Governor is expected to hold a meeting Monday with the officials of the local government bodies in the North.
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British Tamils seek boycott of defiant Sri Lanka

[TamilNet, Sunday, 25 July 2010, 12:21 GMT]
British Prime Minister David Cameron will Monday be handed a memorandum on behalf of UK’s Tamil community urging his government to support an international probe into war crimes in Sri Lanka, and to pressure the Colombo government to resettle in their homes tens of thousands of Tamils still languishing in refugee camps, and allow international access to thousands held in its prisoner-of-war camps. The UK is also being urged to boycott Sri Lanka till Colombo complies with international law. The handover follows a march and ‘midnight vigil’ outside 10 Downing Street staged Friday night by thousands of supporters of the campaign who marked the anniversary of the 1983 ‘Black July’ anti-Tamil pogrom.
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SLA personnel to be settled in uprooted civilians’ land in Ki’linochchi

[TamilNet, Saturday, 24 July 2010, 06:28 GMT]
Five thousand houses constructed in Mu’ruka’ndi area in Ki’linochchi district including Skanthapuram along A9 road are to be settled in August with Sri Lanka Army (SLA) senior and junior officials and their families permanently while the uprooted civilians brought to be resettled in Skanthapuram are left in a school building by Sri Lanka government officials, sources in Ki’linochchi said.
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NGOs consider withdrawing from Vanni as Sri Lanka tightens restrictions

[TamilNet, Friday, 23 July 2010, 16:10 GMT]
Some International and Local Non-government organizations (NGOs) serving in Vanni consider leaving Vanni as Sri Lanka government’s restrictions to stay and serve in Vanni are tightened. Permission from President’s Task Force (PTF), headed by SL President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s brother and Sri Lanka Minister, Basil Rajapaksa for NGOs has been a prerequisite to assist the war affected people in Vanni. In addition to this now Sri Lanka government requires the NGOs serving in Vanni to obtain permission from Sri Lanka Ministry of Defence (MoD) and renew same monthly if they wish to be in Vanni and serve its people, a representative of a local NGO in Vanni said.
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Resettled family children in Vanni abandon school to earn a living

[TamilNet, Friday, 23 July 2010, 06:20 GMT]
Most of the resettled families having lost their earning male members either killed, disappeared or detained in prison after arrest or surrender, their children are forced to drop out from school in order to earn a living for the family, an education officer in Vanni said. The number of children above fifteen in the resettled families abandoning school has shot up drastically, though most of them would like to continue schooling if only they have the means, he further said. Politicians and others who had been shouting hard for the rights of children during the war have become silent on this grave issue, Sitsabesan, a local NGO representative in Vanni said.
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SLA soldiers sexually abuse resettled women in Mannar

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 21 July 2010, 22:38 GMT]
Young women recently released from Vavuniyaa internment camps and resettled in Mannar district are living in fear of their life, and are living are being sexually abused by members of the Sri Lanka Army (SLA) occupying the Mannar area, sources in Mannar said.. Parents of the women undergoing harassment are unable to make official complaints because of fear of retribution, and are relocating, in increasing numbers, their daughters to relatives' houses located elsewhere for safety, civil sources from resettled areas say.
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Construction of fishing centre for Southern fishermen in Mannaar suspended due to protest

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 21 July 2010, 18:49 GMT]
The construction of a fishing jetty and a cooler facility for Sinhalese fishermen from South that was begun in Naachchikkudaa coast in Mannaar district with the support Sri Lanka government top officials was suspended as the local fishermen organizations had raised their strong protest, sources in Mannaar said. The above constructions were begun in the Nachchikkudaa coast where uprooted civilians were allowed to resettle.
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