SLA Civil Admiration Offices in Jaffna to be made permanent

[TamilNet, Sunday, 04 July 2010, 06:33 GMT]
SLA 52 Division Commander Brigadier Lal Perera officially opened a civil administration office in Kodikaamam area in Thenmaraadchi on 30 June in addition to the one already functioning in Jaffna town, sources in Jaffna said. The hurried official openings of SLA civil administration offices in Jaffna peninsula are said to be a part of the government scheme to keep the peninsula under the control of SLA, the sources added. Meanwhile, the Secretary of Presidential Action Committee (PAC) has again instructed the government officials in the North to invite local SLA key officials to all government functions, Jaffna Secretariat sources said.
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Paramilitary groups of politicians involved in robberies in Kalmunai

[TamilNet, Monday, 14 June 2010, 16:17 GMT]
Sri Lanka Muslim Congress (SLMC) parliamentarian M. H. Haris said that politicians continue to use their paramilitary men in robberies and extortion in Kalmunai in the Eastern Province and that despite complaints to police with the names of the armed men no action has been taken against them. Meanwhile, the Officer-in-Charge of Kalmunai police station, Siran Perera said that the suspects in the robberies in his police jurisdiction manage to get away with the help of influential politicians.
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Journalist Roopan remembered in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Saturday, 05 June 2010, 20:54 GMT]
Media associations in Jaffna peninsula held an event Saturday in remembrance of Selvaratnam Roopan, sub-editor of ‘Yaazh Thinakrual’ Tamil daily, also known as ’Sakthi Thasan’ who passed away due to illness in Jaffna Teaching Hospital 25 April, in Jaffna Multi Purpose Society Hall. General Manager of Yaazh Thinakural, A. S. Nadarajan presided at the event attended by Professor. V. P. Sivananthan, Dr. M. Jamunanantha and many media persons of Jaffna peninsula. 32-year-old Roopan had been in the forefront in rescuing thousands of people caught in the clashes in Ma’ndaitheevu in the islets of Jaffna in 2006 and in admitting the injured among them in the hospitals in Jaffna.
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'Lessons Learned committee announced by Rajapaksa cannot be trusted'

[TamilNet, Thursday, 03 June 2010, 07:52 GMT]
Kandy district United National Party (UNP) parliamentarian Luxman Kiriella on Wednesday said that the 8-member Commission on Lessons Learned and Reconciliation (CLLR), recently announced by Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa, cannot be trusted to achieve the goals it claims. Citing the fate of the earlier 8-member presidential Commission on Inquiry (CoI) to inquire human rights violations headed by a former Supreme Court judge Nissanka Udalagama, the UNP parliamentarian said the new commission also seemed to be a deceptive measure adopted by Mr. Rajapaksa to avoid implication in allegations against war crimes.
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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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Colombo, SLA 'poking spear into an unhealed wound' : JUSU

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 18 May 2010, 10:17 GMT]
Sri Lanka government and its army celebrating their Vanni war victory in the the North and East while the Tamils continue to suffer bearing the wounds inflicted by Sri Lanka Army (SLA) in Vanni is like ‘poking spear into an unhealed wound’, Jaffna University Students Union (JUSU) said in a media message titled Monday in Jaffna. Meanwhile, SLA key officials took part in several ‘Victory Celebrations’ held in Vanni mainland while people travelling along A9 road were kept waiting on sides for nearly four hours Monday while SLA conducted its celebration event in Ki’linochchi, sources in Jaffna said.
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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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Jaffna peninsula people gripped in shock, fear as abductions escalate

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 12 May 2010, 06:16 GMT]
Unidentified men arriving in a van forcibly took away a family woman Tuesday morning as she was returning along Karaveddi Sampanthar shop area after having taken her son to school, sources in Vadamaraadchi said. The abductors had attacked the woman with the intention of killing her and dumped her among the shrubs in a deserted area in Valvai where Sri Lanka Army (SLA) soldiers are on patrol. Meanwhile, a teenage girl student had managed to escape from abductors with injuries Tuesday in Point Pedro in Vadamaraadchi while some men had tried to abduct a young woman in front of Jaffna Teaching Hospital as she was coming out of the hospital after treatment, sources in Jaffna said.
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Australia playing “political football” with refugees: Amnesty International

[TamilNet, Saturday, 08 May 2010, 17:20 GMT]
Amnesty International in Australia have slammed the Federal Government’s decision to freeze asylum claims from Tamil and Afghan refugees, accusing both Ruling and opposition parties of “using some of the world’s most vulnerable people as political footballs”, and urging the nation to adhere to its “legal and moral obligation” to provide protection to refugees who have “suffered torture, violence, fear and persecution that we could never imagine”.
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Sivaram showed how Sri Lankan state was dependent on oppression of Tamils: Prof. Whitaker

[TamilNet, Saturday, 01 May 2010, 17:10 GMT]
Sivaram’s biographer and close friend Professor Mark P. Whitaker said Thursday that Sivaram’s ability as a professional journalist to show convincingly how the Sri Lankan state was dependent upon its oppression of Tamil people, was one of the key reasons why he was targeted and killed exactly five years ago. Professor of Anthropology of the University of South Carolina , Mark P. Whitaker made these observations when delivering a speech at an event in London to commemorate the fifth death anniversary of Sri Lanka ’s top journalist Dharmeratnam Sivaram, well-known by his pseudonym as Taraki.
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SLA reimposes road checks in Jaffna peninsula

[TamilNet, Friday, 30 April 2010, 04:42 GMT]
Sri Lanka Army (SLA) authorities in Jaffna have reimposed sudden checking of persons and vehicles at the junctions of main roads in Jaffna peninsula which had been suspended prior to President Election, sources in Jaffna said. SLA officials in a report to local media Wednesday claimed that checking is being reintroduced in the context of escalating incidents of abduction for ransom, killings and robberies in the peninsula. Meanwhile, peninsula residents and civil society organizations said that this very criminal violence had taken place unchecked before the suspension of road checks by the SLA and the police. Working according to a hidden scheme SLA has reimposed the road checks as the first step in bringing the entire peninsula under its total grip, they further said.
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Men claiming to be SLA intelligence personnel abduct, sexually abuse young woman in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 27 April 2010, 17:39 GMT]
Four men claiming to be Sri Lanka Army (SLA) intelligence personnel abducted Sunday a young woman at Kalikai junction in Vadamarradchi and sexually abused her at a deserted place in the area. The men later strangled her and abandoned her taking away her jewelry and other possessions. Local residents who happened to see her Monday morning admitted her to the hospital. Point Pedro police took into custody two men on the information the woman gave and detained them in Jaffna prison through Point Pedro magistrate Court, sources in Point Pedro said. Meanwhile, SLA Commander, Major. Gen. Mahintha Kathurasinghe told media that there are no abductions, killings, sexual abuse of women and robbery in Jaffna peninsula asking the public to inform him if any such incident takes place, the sources added.
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Suspects in Navaali abduction to be charged under PTA

[TamilNet, Sunday, 25 April 2010, 07:59 GMT]
Jaffna police will frame charges against the three suspects who had abducted two family men from Navaali in Jaffna for ransom claiming that they were from the Intelligence Wing of Sri Lanka Army (SLA). The charges are to be made in Mallaakam magistrate court under Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA) and Emergency Regulations (ER), according to police sources. Preliminary investigations reveal the suspects’ involvement in earlier abductions, killings, robbery and sexual abuse in Jaffna peninsula after the opening of A9 road, the sources said. Meanwhile, the claim that they were of the SLA Intelligence Wing has raised suspicion among the peninsula residents of collaboration of the suspects with SLA Intelligence Unit and the paramilitary groups employed by it.
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3 suspects in recent abduction for ransom arrested in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Thursday, 22 April 2010, 13:51 GMT]
Three men from South staying in a house in Chu’ndikku’li area in Jaffna were taken into custody by Jaffna police Thursday on suspicion of involvement in the recent abductions for ransom and killings in Jaffna peninsula on a secret tipoff given by neighbours, sources in Jaffna said. A motor mechanic and an electrician from Navaali abducted Wednesday for ransom were found locked in the said house by the police and were handed over to their families Thursday. The police also discovered blood stains in the house and suspect that the elderly man recovered dead in Kachcheariyadi Wednesday may have been killed in the same house and later dumped in another house in the neighbourhood.
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2 men abducted for ransom in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 21 April 2010, 07:49 GMT]
Unidentified persons arriving in a vehicle forcibly took away two family men on their way to Jaffna town on a motor cycle Tuesday and later rang the family members of the two men and demanded five million rupees for one of them and three million rupees for the other as ransom, their family members said in their complaint to Vaddukkoadai police. Each time the abductors had called for ransom using different hand phones.
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Elections for ‘Asian’ model of dictatorship

[TamilNet, Sunday, 04 April 2010, 10:27 GMT]
Even though the present elections are imposed ones and are deviation tactics of the oppressors, if it is properly understood where the game is heading for, Eezham Tamils will know to whom should they vote to keep their aspirations alive. Despite all odds, the TNA line of politics has to be challenged by the Tamil national cause, at least in some token constituencies, to send the message loud and clear to India and to the outside world. Such a challenge only can be the inspiration for Tamils to eventually evolve the much needed new genre of polity of their own to meet the local and global scenario and once again, such a challenge only can nullify forces conspiring to divide Eezham Tamils in the diaspora and at home, writes TamilNet political commentator in Colombo.
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Britain names Sri Lanka as a country of concern

[TamilNet, Sunday, 21 March 2010, 07:16 GMT]
Sri Lanka is the only country added on the annual human rights report by Britain this year as a country of concern by the Foreign Affairs Committee, according to British Foreign Office. The Annual report on Human Rights 2009 presented 17 March to British Parliament says, ‘Since the last report, we have added one country of concern. We agreed with the Foreign Affairs Committee’s recommendation to include Sri Lanka. This reflects our concern about allegations of serious conflict violations, as well as the deteriorating status of the rule of law and freedom of expression.’
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Excise, police aiding 'kasippu' trade in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Saturday, 20 March 2010, 17:43 GMT]
Distilling and selling of illicit liquor (kasippu) flourishes in many parts in Jaffna peninsula as excise and police officers, being bribed, turn a blind eye to this illicit trade which is even provided with men with grenades to guard the kasippu joints, according to accusations raised by civil society sources in Jaffna. Vaddukkoaddai police arrested a youth Saturday at the toddy tavern in Moo’laay under suspicion and recovered a hand grenade in his possession. When produced at Mallaakam courts he testified that he had been posted there to guard the brewers and sellers from the police and excise officers, sources in Jaffna said.
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Colombo NGOs register complaint over threatening web report

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 09 March 2010, 12:02 GMT]
Executive directors of two NGOs, the Center for Policy Alternatives (CPA), a Colombo-based think tank, and Transparency International, Sri Lanka (TISL), have written a protest letter to Sri Lanka's President Mahinda Rajapakse complaining about a news report in a Colombo website which said that "[Sri Lanka] state intelligence agencies have been compiling a list or lists of individuals supportive of the opposition, and that CPA's Paikiasothy Saravanamuttu, and TISL's Weliamuna have been placed on that list. While noting that CPA "cannot independently ascertain the veracity of this report," the letter said, if the report is true then "there are reasonable grounds for fear about the physical liberty and safety of the individuals concerned."
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Orchestrated efforts suspected in silencing war witnesses

[TamilNet, Thursday, 04 March 2010, 05:22 GMT]
Some recent 'abductions' of Eezham Tamil refugees who have come to Tamil Nadu after the war may have connections to orchestrated efforts in silencing war crime witnesses, allege informed media circles in Chennai. Within the last one month, a special group of people, released from the detention camps of Colombo, was sent to Tamil Nadu to carry out certain specific tasks, the sources said adding that the group includes some former LTTE members of key positions and those who were employed in the former Tamil Eelam civil administration, including the police.
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