UNP, DNA appeal to Rajapakse to release Fonseka immediately

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 25 May 2010, 16:46 GMT]
The main opposition United National Party (UNP) and the Democratic National Alliance (DNA) led by Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) have appealed to President Mahinda Rajapakse, head of ruling United Peoples Freedom Alliance (UPFA) government, to release General (retired) Sarath Fonseka from military custody immediately. Fifty parliamentarians from the UNP and DNA including the Leader of the Opposition Ranil Wickremesinghe signed the appeal.
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Is the U.N. complicit in Sri Lankan war crimes, Arbour asks

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 25 May 2010, 02:44 GMT]
Asserting that "the organization's [United Nation's] abandonment of national staff in a conflict zone and its failure to speak up more forcefully about abuses made it "close to complicit" in [Sri Lanka] government atrocities," Louis Arbor, president of the NGO International Crisis Group (ICG) and former United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, "called for an internal review of the U.N.'s conduct during Sri Lanka's bloody 2009 civil war," the popular Foreign Policy magazine reported.
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Boston Globe: Probe War Crimes in Sri Lanka

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 25 May 2010, 02:35 GMT]
Noting that "outside world has received credible accounts of war crimes perpetrated on a large scale by Sri Lanka security forces as well as by the Tigers," during the military offensives by Colombo in the early months of 2009, Boston Globe, in Monday's editorial said that "President Obama, who has drawn criticism for soft-pedaling human rights concerns in Africa, the Middle East, and elsewhere, should insist that Sri Lanka’s government be held accountable for shelling civilians and hospitals and murdering fighters who surrendered on the battlefield."
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Left allies in UPFA government for abolishing executive presidential system

[TamilNet, Sunday, 23 May 2010, 10:33 GMT]
The Common Left Front (CLF) comprising Lanka Sama Samaja Party (LSSP), Sri Lanka Communist Party (SLCP) and Democratic Left Front (DLF), constituents of the ruling United Peoples Freedom Alliance (UPFA) have decided to submit proposals against continuing the executive presidency and to oppose the rescinding of the constitutional restriction for the incumbent president to contest for more than two terms. Instead they demand introduction of the post of executive prime minister.
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NP Governor orders priority to Southern contractors in Northern development tenders

[TamilNet, Saturday, 22 May 2010, 20:20 GMT]
Northern Province Governor and former Sri Lanka Army (SLA) Commander, Major. Gen. G. A. Chandrasiri, has directed Government Secretaries in the North to prioritize contactors from South in allocating tenders to all development work in the North, sources in Jaffna said. In the context of North being invaded by Southern Sinhalese businessmen and traders Governor’s directive effectively further denies all opportunities to local contractors in the development works in North, the sources added.
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Death toll rises to 26 in flood fury

[TamilNet, Friday, 21 May 2010, 10:26 GMT]
The death toll in the ongoing flood fury in the island of Sri Lanka has risen to 26 by early Friday and the persons affected to nearly 550,000, as several rivers continued to swell to near busting point with officials warning of mass-scale flooding and urged the immediate evacuation of those living close to these water ways.
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Citing photo evidence, HRW calls for UN war crimes probes

[TamilNet, Thursday, 20 May 2010, 22:22 GMT]
Citing photographic evidence in its possession of war crimes committed in Sri Lanka in early 2009, Human Rights Watch (HRW) Thursday joined a chorus of calls this week for an independent international investigation into violations of the laws of war during the closing months of Sri Lanka’s campaign against the Tamil Tigers. Calling on the United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to promptly establish an international investigation to examine allegations of wartime abuse by both sides to the conflict, HRW said it has examined more than 200 photos taken on the front lines in early 2009 by a soldier from the Sri Lankan Army’s Air Mobile Brigade. The pictures include a series showing a captured long-standing LTTE Political Wing cadre being executed by Sri Lankan troops, probably after torture, as well as the possible rape or mutilation of LTTE women cadres.
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SLA to hold Vesak celebration in Jaffna next week

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 19 May 2010, 12:43 GMT]
Elaborate arrangements are being made by the Sri Lanka Army with its command in Jaffna district to celebrate Vesak celebrations in the peninsula on May 27, 28 and 29. Vesak festivities will be held in the Alfred Duraiappah Stadium, Jaffna Public Library and Jaffna Fort by the Sri Lankan Armed Forces stationed in the north. The SLA, which is promoting Sinhala businessmen from south to establish businesses along the A9, has appealed to those in the south who would like to visit Jaffna to make the Vesak festivities an opportunity this year.
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Accounting for 2009 will define Sri Lanka’s future - editorial

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 18 May 2010, 11:10 GMT]
“2009’s single, protracted program of state-conducted slaughter in Sri Lanka has a sixty year-long antecedent, beginning well before the armed conflict erupted in 1983 … Since independence from Britain the Tamils have been a clear target for state-sanctioned and, later, state-conducted violence on a massive scale. … In that sense, the Tamils today embody the raison d’etre of the ‘responsibility to protect,” the Tamil Guardian newspaper argued in its latest editorial.
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SLA soldiers deployed again in road checks, patrol in Jaffna peninsula

[TamilNet, Sunday, 16 May 2010, 19:11 GMT]
Thousands of Sri Lanka Army (SLA) soldiers are deployed along with the police in carrying out checks and patrol of the main roads in Jaffna peninsula again, sources in Jaffna said. Jaffna SLA Commander Mahinda Kathrusinghe informed that SLA forces are being deployed to help the police in Jaffna peninsula to contain the escalating abductions for ransom, killings, robberies and sexual violence on women, deteriorating law and order in the peninsula, in a meeting with the Jaffna district lawyers and magistrates Saturday.
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Resettlement of uprooted civilians remains rejected in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Saturday, 15 May 2010, 11:05 GMT]
The civilians uprooted from Valikaamam in Vadamaraadchi by occupying Sri Lanka Army (SLA) converting their lands into High Security Zone (HSZ) 20 years ago have lost all hopes despite repeated promises and announcements made by government ministers, officials and Jaffna SLA Commander as SLA authorities continue to deny permission for resettlement, according to A.C. Nadarajah, one of nearly a hundred thousand uprooted persons in Jaffna peninsula. Mr. Nadarajah, a former principal, social activist and the present manager of ‘Yarl Thinakural’ in Jaffna, leads one of the welfare organizations for uprooted civilians in Jaffna peninsula. "It is obvious that the main reason for this predicament is the adamancy of the SLA to vacate the lands and properties confiscated from thousands of families in Jaffna peninsula," Mr. Nadarajah told journalists in Jaffna.
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Power cut in Jaffna peninsula to continue indefinitely

[TamilNet, Friday, 14 May 2010, 17:16 GMT]
Despite government publicity that all facilities have been restored to Jaffna peninsula the present power cut continues to be enforced in rotation and is likely to remain indefinitely due to shortage of electricity production in the peninsula, Sri Lanka Electricity Board (SLEB) Jaffna office sources said. The failure of the Chinese firm ‘Northern Power, which is alleged to be the shadow company of Basil Rajapakse, the brother of President Mahinda Rajapakse, that had entered into a contract with the government three years ago to supply electricity for the entire peninsula, is the basic cause for the shortage, the sources added.
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Mahinda Rajapakse leaves to Iran to accept G-15 chairmanship

[TamilNet, Friday, 14 May 2010, 15:11 GMT]
President Mahinda Rajapaksa is to leave Colombo on Sunday to attend the forthcoming G-15 Summit to be held in Tehran on Monday. He is to take over the Chairmanship of the G-15 from the incumbent chairman Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, President of Iran, according to Colombo External Affairs Ministry.
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SL Cabinet approves establishment of Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission

[TamilNet, Friday, 14 May 2010, 03:44 GMT]
Sri Lanka Cabinet on Wednesday approved a proposal by the President Mahinda Rajapakse to appoint a Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission to study the causes that led to the conflict and to prevent such future occurrences, according to Media Minister Keheliya Rambukwella. The Commission would comprise seven eminent Sri Lankans and its terms of reference are to be gazetted in a few days, he said.
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Panadura North police assaults Sinhala resident, victim denied justice

[TamilNet, Thursday, 13 May 2010, 11:04 GMT]
A 32-year-old Sinhala resident of Panadura, south of Colombo, was dragged from his house on May 02 and was beaten unconscious by Panadura North Police. The police did not show any warrant or informed the victim of the complaint. The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) on Thursday said: "Although the hospital arranged for a report by a Judicial Medical Officer and hospital police took a statement, the magistrate who saw him after his discharge asked for neither and remanded him. He was not allowed to collect his prescribed medicine from the hospital. The victim has been released on bail but his wife's complaints against the police have reportedly not been responded to by the authorities. The family fears further intimidation."
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Rajapaksa to appoint new heads to state corporates

[TamilNet, Saturday, 08 May 2010, 19:11 GMT]
Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa's United Peoples Freedom Alliance (UPFA) government is to appoint new heads to all corporations and statutory bodies on May 10. All held those posts under the last government had tendered their resignation on the instruction of Mr. Rajapaksa, SL Presidential secretariat sources told media.
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Game of smoke and mirrors, HRW blasts Sri Lanka's new commission

[TamilNet, Saturday, 08 May 2010, 02:02 GMT]
Commenting on Sri Lanka's announcement that it is appointing a laws-of-war commission, Brad Adams, Asia director at Human Rights Watch said, "[e]very time the international community raises the issue of accountability, Sri Lanka establishes a commission that takes a long time to achieve nothing. Ban should put an end to this game of smoke and mirrors and begin a process that would ensure justice for all the victims of Sri Lanka's war," adding, "Secretary-General Ban should not let Sri Lanka bully and manipulate him into abandoning justice for Sri Lanka's war victims," Adams said. "It is time for him to demonstrate that he is squarely on the side of the victims of Sri Lanka's long war."
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UPFA to table constitutional amendments in June: Sirisena

[TamilNet, Friday, 07 May 2010, 15:52 GMT]
The ruling alliance of Mahinda Rajapaksa, the United Peoples Freedom Alliance (UPFA) is formulating its constitutional amendments, which are likely to be tabled in the Sri Lankan parliament in the month of June, according to a leader of the Sri Lanka Freedom party (SLFP) Maithiripala Sirisena. The SLFP is the main constituent of the UPFA government and Mr. Sirisena is a senior minister in Rajapaksa's cabinet.
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'Minnal Ranga' tipped to cross over to Rajapaksa alliance

[TamilNet, Friday, 07 May 2010, 15:26 GMT]
Two parliamentarians of the main opposition United National Party (UNP) are likely to cross over to the ruling party shortly, according to political sources in Colombo. One is Mr.M.A.Abdul Cader and other is Mr.Ranga Jayaratnam, a well known personality in the electronic media as he was conducting Minnal programme in Sakthi TV of the MTV organization.
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Fonseka to face 3rd court martial

[TamilNet, Friday, 07 May 2010, 15:18 GMT]
Third court martial is likely to be appointed against former Sri Lanka Army Commander (retd.) General Sarath Fonseka, six Colonels and a Brigadier of the SLA over alleged arms deals committed by them when Fonseka was serving as the Commander of the SLA, Colombo media reported quoting Sri Lankan Defence ministry sources.
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