NY Amnesty rally protests violence against journalists in Sri Lanka

[TamilNet, Saturday, 12 April 2008, 03:10 GMT]
Several hundred human rights activists participated in a protest event "Get On The Bus (GOTB)" sponsored by Amnesty International, in New York Friday afternoon outside the Sri Lanka consulate in midtown, protesting against violence against media in Sri Lanka, attendees to the event said. The protesters visited three other country missions in New York, Libyan Mission (political prisoners), Darfur (international justice and accountability), and Myanmar (people of Burma/democracy).
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International Community should learn from experience, Vaiko tells Norway

[TamilNet, Friday, 11 April 2008, 23:03 GMT]
Expressing that the lack of implementation by the Government of Sri Lanka on the agreed principles of the February 2002 Cease Fire Agreement (CFA), especially disarming of army backed paramilitary groups, led to the ultimate breakdown of the peace process, Vaiko, the General Secretary of Marumalarchchi Dravida Munneatta Kazhakam (MDMK), told Norwegian International Development Minister Erik Solheim and Jon Hanssen-Bauer, the Norwegian Special Envoy, that the International Community should prevail upon the GoSL to reinstate the ceasefire in order to engage in a meaningful process for a negotiated settlement.
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Mother, daughter seek protection with HRC Jaffna

[TamilNet, Friday, 11 April 2008, 16:01 GMT]
A mother, with her 9-year-old daughter, sought protection Friday with Human Rights Commission (HRC) Jaffna due to death threats by Sri Lanka Army (SLA) soldiers and SLA-backed paramilitaries, sources in Jaffna said.
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Kandy security reinforced following recovery of explosives

[TamilNet, Friday, 11 April 2008, 10:57 GMT]
Sri Lanka police have reinforced the security of the Kandy district since Wednesday following the detection of about 100 kgs of explosives in Nilagammana in Digana in Teldeniya division, and are reported to be considering conducting cordon and search operation in several areas in Teldeniya.
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As humanitarian crisis unfolds, Diaspora needs to help – paper

[TamilNet, Friday, 11 April 2008, 04:55 GMT]
Warning that, faced with determined resistance to its offensives into the Vanni, the Sri Lankan government, like previous ones, will intensify punitive attacks and measures against the Tamil population there, the Tamil Guardian newspaper this week called on the Diaspora to help alleviate the humanitarian crisis. “The embargo on food and medicine will be tightened further and civilian centers will be targeted more heavily. The Diaspora has long been the mainstay of relief efforts for the people of the Northeastern warzones. It needs to step forward yet again,” the paper said in its editorial.
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America welcomes release of 11 children from Pillayan Group

[TamilNet, Thursday, 10 April 2008, 18:08 GMT]
The United States on Thursday welcomed the release of eleven underage personnel of the Pillayan Group, the paramilitary-cum-political party Tamil Makkal Viduthalai Pulikal (TMVP).
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Colombo attempts to create 'health disaster' in Vanni - LTTE

[TamilNet, Thursday, 10 April 2008, 08:16 GMT]
Health services in Vanni are facing a man made disaster created by the Sri Lanka Defense Ministry, said N. Selvy, LTTE's spokesperson on Human Rights. Sri Lankan forces have blocked supplies to Ki'linochchi Deputy Provincial Director of Health Service (DPDHS) division. The DPDHS office recently said that medicine quota for the district hospital for the first quarter of 2008 is yet to arrive. Meanwhile, Mullaiththeevu DPDHS has told media that only 20% of the fuel supplies needed to operate the district hospital, two sub-hospitals and six pharmacies in the district, has been allowed across the entry point at Oamanthai by the Sri Lankan forces.
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Masked men enter TNA MP's house in Colombo

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 09 April 2008, 13:28 GMT]
Masked men in black uniform entered the house of Tamil parliamentarian Suresh Premachandran, a prominent leader of the Tamil National Alliance (TNA), in the early hours of Wednesday, forced the care-taker of the house into a room saying that they were from the CID, and dug several holes at in the backyard. After they left, Police came to the house, went directly to the backyard without talking to the caretaker and finally detained him till Wednesday noon at Wattala police. Mr. Premachandran, expressing suspicion that some elements 'clothed with legal authority' have acted with the 'sinister motive' to cause disrepute to him, has lodged a complaint with the Inspector General of Police (IGP).
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Goods unfit for consumption forced on Jaffna residents

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 09 April 2008, 05:25 GMT]
Commissioner of Essential Services Department and certain Ministries force consumer goods of low quality and unsuitable for human consumption on families entirely dependent on relief supplies in Jaffna peninsula, Jaffna Secretariat sources said. Authorities in Colombo routinely overlook the list of requirements sent to the authorities in Colombo, and ship unwanted items unfit for local consumption, sources added.
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Wijesekara to succeed Jeyaraj in parliament

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 08 April 2008, 14:24 GMT]
Ganepola Arachchige Bandula Perera Wijesekara, a member of the Western Provincial Council, is to succeed Jeyaraj Fernandopulle in the Sri Lanka parliament, reports from Colombo said. Wijesekara was next in line in the Colombo district list of the ruling United Peoples Freedom Alliance (UPFA).
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"Sri Lanka at the brink"

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 08 April 2008, 12:26 GMT]
Advocating a "federal accommodation for Sri Lanka's Tamil minority," Dr Whitehall in an article on Australia's News Weekly says: "In the first eight months of 2007, an estimated 1,212 Tamils were murdered or disappeared, according to the Sri Lanka-based Law and Society Trust, which reports that Tamils to have been "overwhelmingly affected". Of these victims, 23 were aid and church workers, eight worked with the media, and 68 were children. Most of the abuses occurred in Jaffna, the historic capital of the Tamil region, which is now "occupied" by over 50,000 Sri Lankan troops. Many of the reported abuses have occurred within "high security zones" under the control of those troops."
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SLA conducts search operation in Gampaha, Kelaniya

[TamilNet, Monday, 07 April 2008, 17:10 GMT]
The cordon and search operation launched immediately after the killing of Minister Jeyaraj Fernandopulle in Gampaha and Kelaniya divisions in western province on Sunday morning by soldiers of the Sri Lanka and police is still continuing Monday. Every house, shop and other buildings in the area is being checked by the security forces to find out strangers, media sources said.
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Four persons shot dead in Puththa'lam

[TamilNet, Monday, 07 April 2008, 11:39 GMT]
Four persons were shot dead by a member of the Civil Vigilant Committee in Puliyangku'lam area in Puththa'lam police division Monday early morning, media sources in Colombo said. Sri Lanka government security establishment formed Civil Vigilant Committees to assist police and army to ensure security in Puththalam district.
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Lankan ploy of Buddhism for subversion in Tamil Nadu: Viduthalai Rajendran

[TamilNet, Monday, 07 April 2008, 06:08 GMT]
Circumstantial evidence supports the hand of the Lankan government’s National Intelligence Bureau in the Buddhist temple-building campaign in Tamil Nadu, observed political analyst TSS Mani in Win TV’s News and Views, reported Tehelka Magazine, on Saturday. It further quoted Viduthalai Rajendran, General Secretary of Periyar Dravidar Kazhagam (PDK), saying “ the temple-building a ploy to woo Indian Dalits and pit them against Sri Lankan Tamils on religious lines” A Sinhalese delegation of prominent Buddhist monks laid foundation stones for Buddhist places of worship in Tamil Nadu. Most of them are archaeological sites.
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Tamil, Muslim civilians arrested in Gampaha, Katunayake

[TamilNet, Saturday, 05 April 2008, 18:39 GMT]
Sri Lanka Police arrested two Tamil civilians and five Indians at Katunayake area in a cordon and search operation Thursday evening, sources in Colombo said. In another search operation conducted in Gampaha town from Thursday evening until early Friday morning two youths, one Muslim and one Tamil, were taken into custody, media sources said.
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Split widens within JVP

[TamilNet, Saturday, 05 April 2008, 14:35 GMT]
Wimal Weerawansa, propaganda secretary of the extreme Sinhala nationalist Janatha Wimukthi Peramuna (JVP), was conspicuously absent from the Hero’s day celebrations held at the Viharamahadevi open air theatre Saturday evening, indicating a widenening split within the party, political sources in Colombo said. The suspended JVP Parliamentary Group leader was allegedly not invited for the party's 37th Hero's commemoration event.
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Weerawansa suspended from JVP politburo

[TamilNet, Friday, 04 April 2008, 14:40 GMT]
Wimal Weerawansa, the propaganda secretary of the extreme Sinhala nationalist Jantha Wimukthi Peramuna (JVP) was suspended from the politburo of the JVP. The decision was made at a JVP politburo meeting, chaired by party leader Somawansa Amarasinghe. It is widely suspected that stand related to India, the question of disarming a paramilitary group and how to work with the ruling UPFA government, were reasons for the rift between two factions within the JVP.
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The temporal and spiritual conquest of Tamils: Mahinda's book of dreams

[TamilNet, Friday, 04 April 2008, 07:18 GMT]
More than security concerns, the sentiments of Tamil Christians and their mistrust of Sri Lankan State seem to be the impelling force behind the decision of taking away Our Lady of Madu from her abode. Those who could look at how Kathirkaamam was confiscated from the predominance of Tamils and how the ancient temples behind the Tamil Saiva myth are inside ‘High Security Zones’, could understand the fear of Tamil Christians. The question is whether the International Community and India, which contribute to the military option, don’t understand or don’t want to understand the fact that if there is anything to be defeated militarily in Sri Lanka, it is the chauvinism of the Sri Lankan State.
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No foreign monitors for eastern polls - Bogollagama

[TamilNet, Thursday, 03 April 2008, 19:49 GMT]
Sri Lanka’s Foreign Minister Rohitha Bogollagama said Thursday that there would be no independent monitoring of the forthcoming elections to the Eastern Provincial Council. Meanwhile, whilst addressing a strategic think tank in London earlier this week, Mr. Bogollagama was challenged by the Times newspaper over his government’s bar on foreign media, a statement issued Thursday by the British Tamil Forum, an expatriate lobby group, said.
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2 British MPs on sudden visit to Jaffna

[TamilNet, Thursday, 03 April 2008, 16:08 GMT]
British parliamentarians, Mr. Andrew George and Mr. Stephen Hammond, arriving at Palaali air port from Colombo on a sudden visit Thursday morning, met the Jaffna Government Agent (GA) and other officials at Jaffna Secretariat and gathered information about the prevailing human rights situation in Jaffna peninsula, sources in Jaffna said. The British MPs who visited Jaffna Public Library before the meeting with Jaffna GA are expected to return to Colombo Thursday evening.
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