New Indian High Commissioner for Sri Lanka arrives in Colombo

[TamilNet, Saturday, 14 November 2009, 05:17 GMT]
Mr. Ashok K. Kantha, the new Indian High Commissioner for Sri Lanka arrived in Colombo Thursday. He is to present his credentials to President Mahinda Rajapakse during the weekend, sources in Colombo said. He called on Foreign Minister Mr.Rohitha Bogollagama at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Friday.
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Fonseka resigns

[TamilNet, Thursday, 12 November 2009, 10:02 GMT]
General Sarath Fonseka, the Chief of Defence of the Sri Lanka Army on Thursday resigned from his post, informed sources in Colombo said.
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Ministers invade Jaffna prior to Presidential Election announcement

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 10 November 2009, 19:11 GMT]
With the announcement of President Election expected to take place any time government ministers and deputy ministers have begun to visit Jaffna with the aim to gather support for President Mahinda Rajapakse, media sources in Jaffna said. Similar invasion of ministers to Jaffna had also taken place prior to the recent Jaffna Municipal Council (JMC) election but having won it the ministers have not stepped in Jaffna since then, the sources observed. The ministers and deputy ministers from Colombo now in Jaffna visit government departments in Jaffna meeting the public and officers.
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Household checking by police in Colombo reimposed

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 10 November 2009, 10:10 GMT]
The new Inspector General of Police (IGP), Mahinda Balasooriya, on his assumption of duty has reimposed checking of house holds of Tamil residents in Colombo. In a repetition as in the LTTE war period, police personnel have been instructed to question any visitor lodged in a residence not registered with the respective police station in the area and to take any person living in a household unregistered into police custody, sources in Colombo said.
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Government has to get the support of the South first to solve Tamil ethnic issue – Vasudeva Nanayakkara

[TamilNet, Sunday, 08 November 2009, 06:28 GMT]
Senior Advisor to Sri Lanka President Mahinda Rajapakse and a veteran Sinhalese politician, Vasudeva Nanayakkara, said that the government has to get the support of the people in the South of the country to solve the problems of the Tamils, in response to questions raised by the members of Jaffna Traders’ Association (JTA) in a meeting held Saturday evening in the JTA building in Jaffna. The members had asked as to why it was not possible to carry out the Supreme Court directive to resettle the IDPs from Valikaamam North in their own places now occupied by Sri Lanka Army while the Supreme Court order to demerge Northern and Eastern provinces had been executed overnight.
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Fonseka flees US

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 04 November 2009, 13:19 GMT]
Sri Lanka Army chief, Lt. Gen. Sarath Fonseka fled the United States cutting short his planned stay in the US to avoid being questioned by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) over warcrimes under his command, according to an AFP report. "Mr Fonseka's future chances of retiring to the US are now in jeopardy, and consequent developments in other countries of the world, except the rights violator nations, may make him a fugitive," legal sources in Washington said. Meanwhile, incriminating, anonymous, hearsay evidence has surfaced on the activities of his son-in-law, Danuna Tillakaratne, on making weapons deals from Oklahoma. Tamils Against Genocide (TAG), a US-based pressure group, said yesterday that TAG will be preparing a detailed document after further research on this matter for possible use by the US law enforcement authorities.
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Amnesty, CPJ, RSF call for probe into Channel-4 video death threats

[TamilNet, Thursday, 29 October 2009, 11:28 GMT]
New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), Amnesty International, and Paris-based Reporters Without Borders (RSF), three premier watchdogs on media freedom, independently called Sri Lanka to investigate into the death threats received by two senior editors of Sri Lanka's Sunday Leader for the editors' coverage of the Channel-4 broadcast video which showed armed Sri Lankan soldiers allegedly executing Tamil prisoners stripped naked and hands tied behind their backs. “The air of impunity surrounding violence against the media is having a chilling effect on journalists,” said Bob Dietz, CPJ’s Asia program coordinator.
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Sarath Fonseka’s stand on relations with Tamils, Muslims should be made public – Mano Ganeshan

[TamilNet, Saturday, 24 October 2009, 18:32 GMT]
“The persons who try to bring in former Sri Lanka Army (SLA) Commander, Sarath Fonseka as a prospective presidential candidate should first publicize his stand on his relations with the Tamils and Muslims of the country,” Mano Gnaeshan, Colombo district parliamentarian and the leader of Democratic Peoples’ Front (DPF) told media in Colombo after a discussion held with Ranil Wickremasinghe, the leader of the opposition and United National Party Friday evening, sources in Colombo said.. “We will not write ‘blank cheques’ in favour of any major political party candidate in the Presidential election,” he said. “We do not have any personal hard feelings either towards President Mahinda Rajapakse or Sarath Fonseka; whatever difference of opinion that exists is purely political,” he further said.
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Tamil Nadu must recognize and support establishment of Tamil Eelam: Thirumavalavan

[TamilNet, Saturday, 24 October 2009, 13:38 GMT]
Stating that there was a total violation of human rights in the Sri Lankan Government's camps for Internally Displaced Persons, Viduthalai Chiruthaigal Katchi President Thol.Thirumavalavan, told TamilNet Friday in an exclusive interview of the "appalling conditions" prevalent in these "barbed-wire concentration camps" which he witnessed firsthand as one of the ten-member parliamentary delegation from Tamil Nadu. Pointing out that Tamil people could not become a "permanent slave society" and "live as second class citizens in Sri Lanka," Thirumavalavan sought to emphasize that Tamil Eelam was the only solution to a struggle that had claimed the lives of nearly fifteen hundred thousand Tamils civilians and more than thirty thousand Tamil Tiger fighters.
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Army colonel, wife arrested for plotting to kill Rajapakse

[TamilNet, Saturday, 24 October 2009, 04:04 GMT]
Five suspects, including an Army Colonel, held under detention orders for their alleged involvement in plotting to assassinate President Mahinda Rajapakse, were handed over to the Criminal Investigations Department (CID) Friday for further investigations on the orders of Mount Lavinia Additional Magistrate Ruchira Weliwatte. The court made the order on an application by the Colombo Crimes Division (CCD).
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Rights organizations urge Japan to break its silence on SL rights abuses

[TamilNet, Friday, 23 October 2009, 17:16 GMT]
Six Japanese and international human rights organizations in a joint letter to Japan’s Foreign Minister Katsuya Okadanew called upon Japan’s new administration to publicly press the Sri Lankan government to end the illegal detention of approximately 250,000 Tamil civilian, according to Human Rights Watch (HRW). “Japan is an excellent position to make its influence felt with Sri Lanka. The new government needs to make clear that it expects Sri Lanka to free the people locked up in the camps and pursue justice for the victims of the war years”, Tokyo director at HRW, Kanae Doi, said.
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SLA conducts Perahera in Jaffna city

[TamilNet, Friday, 23 October 2009, 07:03 GMT]
The 51st Division of Sri Lanka Army (SLA) in Jaffna conducted the ‘Katrima Pooja’ perahera (Buddhist religious procession) of Naakavikaarai located in Jaffna city Thursday night led by Namal Rajapakse, the son of Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa, who had come along with 250 youths and 20 Buddhist priests from the South to participate in the perahera. Local residents, however, did not show any significant interest in the perahera conducted by the SLA.
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Colombo censure spreads to private websites

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 21 October 2009, 03:32 GMT]
The Information Department of the Government of Sri Lanka is to blacklist and carry out round-the- clock monitoring of private websites that are "known to spread anti-government propaganda and feed incorrect information." "Counter propaganda will be launched by the government to safeguard the present environment of peace and prevent unrest among the public,” said Media Minister Lakshman Yapa Abeyawardene at a press briefing held Tuesday. Meanwhile, Paris-based media watchdog, Reporters Sans Frontieres (RSF), ranked Sri Lanka at 162, fourteenth from the bottom of a 175-nation list, and relegated Sri Lanka to reside with the world's worst press rights offender nations.
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Rajapakse tours Trinco under heavy security

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 21 October 2009, 03:26 GMT]
Sri Lanka's President Mahinda Rajapakse visited Trincomalee under heavy security, and declared open two bridges, one over a strip of sea that divides Trincomalee and Kinniya along A-15 highway that leads to Batticaloa via Veruhal, and the other over Irakkandi lagoon on Trincomalee-Nilaveli road in the north of the district, sources in Trincomalee said. Rajapakse also visited the historic Trincomalee Koneswaram Temple located on the Swami Rock inside the Fort Frederick and attended the special temple prayer.
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Tamil internment, a manifestation of Sinhala state racism - paper

[TamilNet, Saturday, 17 October 2009, 16:04 GMT]
"Despite the manifest outrage of international human rights groups like HRW and Amnesty International, relief agencies and several Western states, Sri Lanka defiantly continues to brutalize the [Tamil] detainees [locking them up in barbed wire militarized camps]. Whilst various international actors attempt to goad, cajole and compel Sri Lanka to let the civilians go, few have examined the reasons for their incarceration. As far as the Tamils are concerned, it is obvious: this is the latest manifestation of the Sinhala state racism," the British paper Tamil Guardian said in the latest weekend edition.
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Sri Lanka releases arrested pro-JVP newspaper editor

[TamilNet, Saturday, 17 October 2009, 15:11 GMT]
The Criminal Investigation Department (CID) of the Sri Lanka Police Saturday evening arrested Mr. Chandana Sirimalwatte, the editor of “Lanka,” a Sinhala language weekly newspaper, over a news item regarding the alleged rift between the Sri Lanka's President Mahinda Rajapakse and the Chief of Defence Staff (CDS) Major General Sarath Fonseka. Latest reports from Colombo say that the editor was released around 11:00 p.m. Saturday after nearly five hours of interrogation.
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Colombo squandaring chance for reconciliation - Economist

[TamilNet, Friday, 16 October 2009, 03:34 GMT]
Noting that, while the improving economy and successful recent elections may increase Colombo's reluctance to deal with the Tamil internment issue in expeditious manner, the Economist in its latest edition said, "[t]he damage being done to Sri Lanka’s international image, however, may last longer. The Tamil diaspora will keep alive the calls for investigation of alleged war-crimes by both sides in the climactic campaign. And the EU has to decide whether to withdraw Sri Lanka’s special trade privileges on human-rights grounds. If, as seems likely, it does, the country’s garment exporters will suffer great damage, and employment will consequently be hit," and added that "the government, its reputation already tarnished by the manner of its final victory, risks squandering the richest prize that victory offers: the chance for national reconciliation."
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'Time for South India to take care of its own geopolitics'

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 14 October 2009, 00:26 GMT]
The historic duty of Tamil Nadu today is to cast with far sight its diplomatic weight internationally, convincing New Delhi and the international community to come out with fundamental solutions recognizing the national aspirations of Eezham Tamils, writes TamilNet political commentator in Colombo. "Saying foreign affairs is an exclusive domain of the Centre is only an excuse in contemporary world, especially when a federal government fails in it seriously affecting the strategic interests of a state. A Tamil Nadu delegation visiting Sri Lanka is perhaps for the first time an external affairs exercise of a state in India, but it has cut a negative image with the people to whom it was meant for, raising questions on the bona fides of the whole exercise," the commentator further says.
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Sinhalese Buddhist priest appointed as archaeological curator for Jaffna

[TamilNet, Saturday, 10 October 2009, 12:45 GMT]
Sri Lanka President Mahinda Rajapakse has appointed Rev. Warapitiya Rahula Thero as the curator for archaeological artifacts in Jaffna peninsula in an attempt to fabricate evidence to show the Sinhalese masses and the outer world that traces of Buddhism in Jaffna peninsula are exclusively Sinhalese, sources in Jaffna said. Rev. Rahula Thero will be working from an office that is to be soon built in the ‘Old Park’ located next to Jaffna Secretariat. Jaffna Museum which had lain neglected for more than 30 years and looted during successive Sri Lanka Army (SLA) offensives on the peninsula is to be relocated to the new archaeological department in Old Park where Rev. Rahula Thero will go into action following in the footsteps of the successive Sinhalese regimes which have tried to rewrite the history of Sri Lanka in favour of Sinhalese Buddhists, the sources added.
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EP Education Ministry administered by Sinhalese officers - CTU

[TamilNet, Monday, 05 October 2009, 03:48 GMT]
Ceylon Teachers’ Union (CTU) pointed out in a memorandum sent to the President Mahinda Rajapakse Saturday that the development of education in the Eastern Province where Tamil speaking people are in majority is in the hands of three Sinhalese officers who hold the three top posts in EP provincial education ministry. The provincial minister of education is also a Sinhalese, CTU said.
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