IFRC President to visit Sri Lanka

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 25 January 2011, 15:37 GMT]
The President of the International Federation of the Red Cross & Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) Tadateru Konoé is scheduled to arrive Wednesday in Colombo to support the much needed flood operations and to celebrate volunteerism in the island. Mr. Konoé is scheduled to travel to the north, the east and the south of the island to assess the aftermath of floods and also to witness the work of the Sri Lanka Red Cross Society and the IFRC, according to a statement by the IFRC.
Full story >>

Court martial indicting Fonseka valid under constitution: SL Supreme Court

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 25 January 2011, 14:00 GMT]
Sarath Fonseka, the former Sri Lanka Army commander, who unsuccessfully challenged SL president Mahinda Rajapaksa, and was later imprisoned and court-martialed, lost his appeal to retain his parliamentary seat Tuesday as Sri Lankan Supreme Court ruled that the court-martial investigations were not in violation to the SL Constitution. Mr. Fonseka also lost his civic rights, including the right to vote, for six years in his country. The determination of the Supreme Court was disclosed Tuesday afternoon by the Court of Appeal headed by Justice Ranjith de Silva.
Full story >>

HRW: Sri Lanka stonewalls on wartime abuses

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 25 January 2011, 05:37 GMT]
In a press release issued today with the 649-page World Report for 2011, Human Rights Watch (HRW) noted that “Sri Lanka’s aggressive rejection of accountability for war crimes is an affront to the victims’ of the country’s long civil war,” and Elaine Pearson, deputy Asia director warns that “[t]here is no reason to believe that Sri Lanka will return to a rights-respecting government any time in the near future. Until wartime abuses are prosecuted, minority grievances are addressed, and repression against the press and civil society ends, only the president and his family members in power have reason to feel secure in Sri Lanka.”
Full story >>

White House protest calls for arrest of visiting Sri Lanka President

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 25 January 2011, 04:49 GMT]
Nearly one hundred Tamils in unfriendly weather conditions called upon the US President to investigate and arrest the visiting Sri Lanka's President Mahinda Rajapakse widely accused of committing war-crimes against Tamils during the end of Sri Lanka's war in May 2009. Protesters pointed out that US Ambassador in Colombo, Ambassador Butenis, has herself acknowledged possible complicity by the Rajapakse brothers of the said crimes. The protest took place at the Washington D.C. Lafayette park in front of the White House along the closed Pennsylvania avenue between 11:00 a.m. and 3:00 p.m. Monday. Another group of protesters assembled in front of the US State Department located at the C Street NW in Washington D.C.
Full story >>

Forced recruitment of traders by Colombo to contest elections in Jaffna, Vanni

[TamilNet, Monday, 24 January 2011, 22:29 GMT]
Colombo’s terror campaign and abductions in Jaffna and Vanni now aim at forced recruitment of traders to contest local bodies elections under Mahinda Rajapaksa’s SLFP ticket, sources in Jaffna said. In recent days, many leaders of traders associations in Jaffna were abducted by SL Army officers coming to their houses and were taken to Colombo. They were not told why were they abducted and where were they being taken. They were later released in Colombo after forcefully getting signatures from them to contest elections in Jaffna and Vanni, under the SLFP. The traders said they didn’t want to contest but were afraid of their lives. Meanwhile, R. Ankajan, SLFP coordinator in Jaffna, is ‘recruiting’ university students to campaign in the elections.
Full story >>

TAG to file civil case against Rajapakse in Texas Federal Court

[TamilNet, Sunday, 23 January 2011, 02:37 GMT]
Tamils Against Genocide (TAG), a US-based activist group advocating criminal legal action worldwide against Sri Lanka's alleged war-criminals, said in a press release issued today, that TAG's attorney is filing civil action against visiting Sri Lanka's President Mahinda Rajapakse for damages under the Alien Tort Claims Act (ATCA/TVPA) on behalf of three plaintiffs for the killings of 40,000 civilians in Mullaiththeevu in 2009, killing of 5 Trincomalee students in January 2006, and for the killing of 17 Action contre la faim (ACF) workers in August 2006. As calls to apprehend, investigate and prosecute Mahinda Rajapakse by rights organizations, US Congresspersons and diaspora Tamils have escalated, European Tamil diaspora youth are mobilizing protests in front of US embassies against Rajapakse's visit to the U.S.
Full story >>

Sri Lanka's commission to conclude "sittings"

[TamilNet, Saturday, 22 January 2011, 14:25 GMT]
Sri Lanka's Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC), the mandate of which was deliberately designed to whitewash Sri Lanka's war-crimes, and invitation to three leading premier human rights watchdogs Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch (HRW), and International Crisis Group (ICG) to attend LLRC's sittings was rejected due to LLRC "lacking the ability to advance accountability for war crimes," announced that the LLRC will "conclude its public sittings after the completion of sittings in the Ampara District in mid February" and would then would prepare its "final report that would be submitted to [Sri Lanka's] President Mahinda Rajapaksa in May," local media reported.
Full story >>

Militarization of policing announced in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Saturday, 22 January 2011, 13:33 GMT]
Mounted on bicycles, the SL military in Jaffna will be ‘patrolling’ the streets. They may not enter houses but will be engaged in street checks. They will act in the same way they were functioning during war times. The military cannot be confined to barracks, announced the colonial commander of the occupying SL military, Maj. Gen. Mahinda Hathurusinghe in a meeting held in the district secretariat Saturday. The military has to be in alert as crimes may escalate in the wake of elections expected soon, he envisaged. Political observers in Jaffna said that the premeditated step aims to bring civil administration and civilians in Jaffna completely under the control of the occupying military. Colombo’s plan was mouthed through the Sri Lanka Government Agent (SLGA) Mrs Imelda Sugumar a few weeks ago, when she urged the Army to police Jaffna.
Full story >>

Rajapakse, a war-criminal in hiding

[TamilNet, Friday, 21 January 2011, 00:47 GMT]
Sri Lanka's President, Mahinda Rajapakse, purportedly on a private visit to the U.S. is likely to remain in hiding with his physical whereabouts kept secret from the public to avoid another embarrassing battle with diaspora Tamils. While, as a matter of jurisprudential fairness, US Ambassador Butenis's acknowledgment that Rajapaksas have committed possible war-crimes in Sri Lanka should trigger a Justice Department investigation, Rajapakse would not have attempted to enter U.S. absent assurance from the State Department that he will not be subjected to any legal procedures. Rajapakse will also be aware that, unlike in the UK, in the US private citizens cannot apply for an arrest warrant.
Full story >>

Admitting Rajapakse into US criminally similar to allowing-in genocidaire Karadzic, says Boyle

[TamilNet, Thursday, 20 January 2011, 02:30 GMT]
Comparing alleged war-criminal and Sri Lanka's current President Rajapakse's reported admission into the United States to the Clinton administration's providing entry visa to genocidaire Radovan Karadzic to enter the U.S in order to attend the Vance-Owen Peace Negotiations in New York City, Professor Francis Boyle, expert in international law at the College of Law, University of Illinois, told TamilNet that Obama administration is obligated to apprehend, investigate and prosecute alleged genocidares for violating Geneva Convention and Genocide convention. Obama administration giving Rajapakse visa to enter US and allowing him free movement is "Machiavellian Realpolitik at its worst," said Boyle.
Full story >>

Amnesty: US should investigate Rajapaksa during his visit

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 19 January 2011, 23:23 GMT]
The United States should investigate Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapksa, when he arrives on a surprise visit to the US this week, for his alleged role in perpetrating torture and war crimes, Amnesty International said Wednesday. President Rajapaksa left Sri Lanka for the US early Wednesday, taking a delegation of 20 on a supposedly private visit.
Full story >>

Rajapaksa leaves to USA after meeting Armitage

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 19 January 2011, 15:07 GMT]
Sri Lanka’s President Mahinda Rajapaksa Wednesday morning left Colombo to United States of America on a 'private' trip , according to Ada Derana, an electronic media that cited Bandula Jayasekara, the director general of the SL President Media. On Tuesday, Mr.Mahinda Rajapaksa held discussion with the former United States Deputy Secretary of State Richard L. Armitage.
Full story >>

Indian-partnered gala in Jaffna to follow Rajapaksa-Pongkal with Sinhala anthem

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 19 January 2011, 07:08 GMT]
Sri Lanka anthem was sung in Sinhala by the school children of Jaffna at the Rajapaksa Pongkal in Jaffna on Monday. A large number of the participants to the event were school students and their teachers, forcibly brought to the occasion. Around a hundred students were lured by the EPDP with promises of laptop computers from the SL president. Meanwhile, another gala, an ‘International Trade Fair’ in Jaffna, has been fixed to take place between Jan 21- 23 in the municipal grounds of Jaffna, with the partnership of India, and Basil Rajapaksa as its chief guest, Colombo media reported. Indian High Commissioner Ashok K. Kantha, Indonesian Ambassador Jafar Hussain and SL minister Rishard Bathiudeen are special guests for the occasion that is going to have ‘entertainment’ as well amidst business.
Full story >>

Diplomats, defence chiefs hover around Colombo

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 19 January 2011, 07:05 GMT]
Former US Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage had talks with SL president Mahinda Rajapaksa at the latter’s official residence Tuesday evening. The Pakistan Army Chief General Ashfaq Kayani will be in Colombo Wednesday, on a three-day visit, meeting Mr. Rajapaksa, SL Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa and the service chiefs. The Indian Air Chief Marshal, Pradeep Vasant Naik, arrived Colombo on Sunday was on a four-day visit. He also was scheduled to call on the SL president, Defence Secretary and the service chiefs.
Full story >>

Rajapaksa skips 're-reopening' of Vasaavi'laan Central College

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 19 January 2011, 01:19 GMT]
Sri Lankan president Mahinda Rajapaksa skipped 're-reopening' Vasaavi'laan Central College Sunday. The plaque had his name, the invitation was in his name, but the renovated hall of Vasaavi'laan Central College was again re-opened by SL minister Douglas Devananda and SL colonial governor Chandrasiri. They were the people who re-opened it in September last year. Earlier, Mr. Rajapaksa reportedly expressed his dissatisfaction of their act of re-opening the school in a hurry as the conditions were not conducive. Only a part of the college uprooted to Urumpiraay in the last two decades has been shifted back to the locality.
Full story >>

News reports irk Rajapaksa in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 18 January 2011, 00:05 GMT]
SL president Mahinda Rajapaksa visiting Jaffna and ‘celebrating’ Pongkal on Monday reacted to media reports that pointed out his ‘conspicuous silence’ about an aid he was politically capitalising. Meanwhile, the SL president who is coupling a terror campaign with his campaign for a colonial polity, ‘celebrating’ a Tamil agrarian festival in military occupied Jaffna, spending millions of rupees and intimidating people to attend it, while the agricultural lands of the Tamil country are seriously deluged in the floods making hundreds of thousands homeless, was nauseating to the public, media sources in Jaffna said. But addressing along with Rajapaksa, the SL minister and the ‘host’ of the event, Douglas Devananda declared that “today the polity of collaboration is on its victorious march.”
Full story >>

Gunmen open fire at priest's house, wife seriously injured in Maanippaay, Jaffna

[TamilNet, Monday, 17 January 2011, 16:13 GMT]
Armed men who came in a motorbike opened fire on the family of a Saiva (Hindu) priest on Maanippaay Hospital Road causing serious injuries to 31-year-old Nimesha, the wife of the priest Sribalasundarakkurukka'l. Maanippaay is situated near Changkaanai, where a Chief Priest was shot and succumbed to his wounds two months ago. The shooting, which has taken place on the day when SL President Mahinda Rajapaksa visited Jaffna to celebrate Pongkal has caused tension in the entire peninsula. Ms. Nimesha is struggling for her life at the intensive care unit of Jaffna Teaching Hospital, according to medical sources.
Full story >>

'Pentagon blighting Tamil cause may turn counter-productive to US interests'

[TamilNet, Monday, 17 January 2011, 00:39 GMT]
“The Sri Lankan government does have supporters in the U.S., particularly in military circles. Senior officials told me that their government owed much to a Pentagon official named James Clad, ‘a great friend of Sri Lanka.’ Clad was the Bush Administration’s Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for South and Southeast Asia, in charge of the Pentagon’s dealings with India and Sri Lanka, until he was replaced by the Obama Administration in January, 2009,” wrote John Lee Anderson in Newyorker.com last week, adding that in order to reform Sri Lanka’s public image, Clad, who recently retired from the Pentagon’s National Defense University, recommended to Gotabaya Rajapaksa that he host a meeting on maritime-security concerns in the Indian Ocean to “get out of its box as a ‘single-issue country’ and reconnect it with an earlier maritime heritage,” Anderson cited Clad, advising Gotabhaya.
Full story >>

Rajapaksa claims credit for British-aided causeway and bridge to Jaffna

[TamilNet, Sunday, 16 January 2011, 20:00 GMT]
“The foundation for this causeway and bridge was laid down 7 times since 1940's, but it was only my government that managed to complete the project,” claimed Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa in opening a causeway and bridge in the SL military-occupied Tamil country in the island, between Keara-theevu of the Jaffna peninsula and Changkup-piddi in Poonakari of the main island on Sunday. The causeway as used to be called Mahadeva Thaampoathi was first built in British times and the present bridge, doing away with the ferry route in between points of the causeway, has been built by British Steel Corporation, aiding the island. Mr. Rajapaksa made no mention of the British aid at the inauguration and the obscured British officials were found seated only among the audience.
Full story >>

UN ambivalent on Advisory Panel's agenda

[TamilNet, Saturday, 15 January 2011, 14:16 GMT]
United Nation's Secretary General (UNSG), Ban Ki Moon, told the Inner City Press that the members of the Advisory Panel on Sri Lanka "are now working very seriously on finalizing the dates of visiting Sri Lanka," and responding to a question that the panel cannot investigate anything [on Sri Lanka's war crimes], Ban replied, "[t]hey will be able to...They are now discussing that." ICP's Matthew Lee notes that "[t]his again in contradictory to what the Sri Lankan government has said, and even to what Ban's spokespeople have said. Ban's acting Deputy Spokesman Farhan Haq, bypassing Inner City Press' outstanding questions, told BBC's Sinhala service that the Panel might only meet the LLRC outside Sri Lanka."
Full story >>