MPGA pickets Jaffna district secretariat

[TamilNet, Monday, 02 December 2002, 19:38 GMT]
The Jaffna District Secretariat came to a standstill Monday due to the picketing by members of the Missing Persons Guardian Association (MPGA), demanding the government to expedite investigations into the Chemmani mass graves.
Full story >>

CID submits confidential report on Chemmani mass graves

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 27 November 2002, 10:43 GMT]
The Criminal Investigation Department (CID) submitted its confidential report on the Chemmani mass graves' exhumation to the Colombo Chief Magistrate Tuesday afternoon, legal sources said. Further inquiry in regard to the Chemmani mass grave continues, CID officials told the Chief Magistrate.
Full story >>

Assessing progress of Chemmani investigations

[TamilNet, Saturday, 02 November 2002, 18:42 GMT]
Amnesty International said in 1997 that as many as 600 people who "disappeared" in the Jaffna peninsula after the Sri Lankan Army moved into the area in 1996, "died under torture or been deliberately killed." A soldier involved in the crimes alleged that Chemmani was where bodies of those disappeared were clandestinely buried. However, the Chemmani mass grave investigation has become a victim of the judicial limbo common in Sri Lanka when powerful interests are implicated. Ethnic politics and the fallout of an active war have also contributed to the lack of forward movement in the case.
Full story >>

Court seeks Chemmani report

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 28 August 2002, 14:42 GMT]
The Colombo Chief Magistrate has directed the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) to submit on November 26 a full report regarding the investigation into the mass graves at Chemmani. The court issued the directive when the case against six Sri Lanka Army suspects held in connection with the Chemmani graves was taken up for inquiry Tuesday.
Full story >>

New Army base in Columbuthurai

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 04 June 2002, 20:50 GMT]
The Sri Lanka Army is constructing a new base near the Maternity Home in Nedunkulam, Columbuthurai in the outskirts of Jaffna town, local press reports said Tuesday. The Army is bulldozing the walls, fences and trees on both sides of the Nedunkulam Road in preparation, the Uthayan newspaper reported.
Full story >>

Tumultuous welcome in Jaffna for Tigers

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 09 April 2002, 11:58 GMT]
(News Feature) Residents in Jaffna gave the Liberation Tigers who entered the northern town Monday a tumultuous welcome, press reports in the northern peninsula said Tuesday. Over fifty thousand people thronged the Sri Lanka Army held northern side of the Muhamalai crossing point to meet the fifteen cadres from the LTTE’s political section, the Uthayan reported. Violence broke out as troops blocked the crowds from reaching the crossing point, the paper, Jaffna’s largest circulating daily said in a front page report Tuesday.
Full story >>

Jaffna missing persons' parents continue protest

[TamilNet, Saturday, 10 November 2001, 08:14 GMT]
"Arrests, deaths and destruction will continue in our land until our struggle succeeds. To put an end to such tragedies we have to succeed in our people's struggle. If we speak out for our nation then we shall win our struggle for which blood is being spilled," said Rev. Fr. T. Jeyakumar, the head of the Human Development Centre (HUDEC), addressing a demonstration and protest sit in near the Muniappar temple in Jaffna town Saturday by more than 200 parents and relatives of persons who went missing after being arrested by the Sri Lanka army in 1996-97 in the northern peninsula. The protest was organised by the Missing Persons' Guardian Association (MPGA) and the Jaffna Mothers' Front. "We will continue the protest tomorrow as well," the secretary of the MPGA told Tamilnet.
Full story >>

Jaffna missing persons’ parents, relatives protest

[TamilNet, Monday, 05 November 2001, 07:21 GMT]
More than a hundred parents and family members of the persons who were arrested by the Sri Lankan security forces and went missing in Jaffna began a demonstration in front of the Jaffna District Secretariat from 7 a.m. Monday. The families of the missing allege that the Sri Lankan government has deliberately shelved investigations. Policemen who arrived at the secretariat later in the morning abused the demonstrators who were seated across the entrance of the Secretariat holding placards and attempted to disperse them. The protestors, however, refused to move and vowed to continue with their sit in demonstration until 3 p.m. this afternoon. More than 600 persons, mostly young men and women were arrested by the SLA in the northern peninsula in 1996-97. All are believed murdered.
Full story >>

Tough time on Hard Talk

[TamilNet, Thursday, 01 November 2001, 15:06 GMT]
(News Feature) Sri Lankan President Chandrika Kumaratunga's public relations blitz in the Western media unexpectedly ran into difficulties Tuesday on the BBC's Hard Talk program hosted by Tim Sebastian. Faced with several embarrassing questions about the human rights situation in the island and the lack of progress in the peace process, President Kumaratunga, struggling to respond, became increasingly defensive and irritated. During the course of the half-hour interview, Kumaratunga said the US State Department's 2001 report on human rights contained "lies," claimed there had been "only one rape in Jaffna" since she came to power, flatly denied there was an economic embargo on Tamil areas ("that is nonsense!"), and blamed rights violations on "mad" policemen. Amid Sebastian's, trademark rapid-fire questions, some exchanges with the President bordered on the farcical.
Full story >>

Investigators find more in Jaffna hospital grave

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 03 October 2001, 14:49 GMT]
Forensic investigators found more human skeletal remains in a pit dug near the mortuary of the Jaffna Teaching Hospital Wednesday. Medical-legal sources said that the bones appeared to be mostly those of young persons. Bones and teeth that were found in the pit today were taken in three boxes for further forensic examination. The Jaffna courts ordered an investigation after construction workers of the Jaffna Municipal Council who were digging at the site came upon human bones and a saree on 18 September.
Full story >>

Fear said stifling Batticaloa massacre memory

[TamilNet, Sunday, 09 September 2001, 15:51 GMT]
The brutal massacre of 184 Tamil villagers, including 42 children below the age of ten and several pregnant women, on 9 September 1990 in the Sri Lanka army camp in Saththurukondaan, on the outskirts of the Batticaloa town was commemorated Sunday in Valaichenai. A public meeting was organised by the Koralaipattu Human Rights Organisation (KHRO) in Valaichenai town to mark the eleventh anniversary of the massacre.
Full story >>

Arrested student leader said being tortured

[TamilNet, Thursday, 12 July 2001, 02:06 GMT]
(News Feature) Krishnasamy Thivyan, the former secretary of the Jaffna University Students Union who was arrested by the Sri Lanka Army has been tortured in military custody, fellow students said Wednesday. In a statement published in Jaffna's Tamil Daily, the Uthayan, the students also said that Thivyan, who is being held by the SLA at its Kankesanthurai, had survived earlier attempts on his life by the security forces.
Full story >>

Protests as Janaka Pereraís appointment proceeds

[TamilNet, Monday, 18 June 2001, 16:03 GMT]
(News Feature) Hundreds of Tamils protested outside Australia's Parliament Monday over the government's acceptance of a Sri Lanka Army General accused of human rights violations as Colombo's High Commissioner to Canberra. Amnesty International also voiced its opposition, but Australia's Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said his Sri Lankan counterpart, Lakshman Kadirgamar, had given his "personal assurance" that Major General Retd.) Janaka Perera is a "suitable and worthy appointment."
Full story >>

No funds for analysis says CID

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 13 March 2001, 19:46 GMT]
(Correction) The Criminal Investigation Department of the Sri Lankan Police told the magistrate hearing the Chemmani case Tuesday in Colombo that the DNA and forensic reports on the Chemmani skeletal remains were not available because the Ministry of Defence had not allocated funds for sending the bones for forensic examination abroad. The CID had got quotations for the forensic examination of the skeletal remains and the DNA tests of the blood samples taken from the next of kin of the persons who were believed killed and buried in Chemmani.
Full story >>

US ambassador visits mass graves site in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 07 March 2001, 19:11 GMT]
"If you say that the LTTE is a terrorist organization then you must also accept that the Sri Lankan government is promoting terrorism in the country", representatives from the University of Jaffna told the US ambassador for Sri Lanka, Mr. Ashley Wills, during a discussion Wednesday in the northern town.
Full story >>

Court to hear Mailanthanai massacre case

[TamilNet, Sunday, 28 January 2001, 23:34 GMT]
(Newsfeature) The Mailanthanai massacre case in which 21 Sri Lanka army soldiers are accused of hacking to death 35 Tamils, including women, in a remote Batticaloa village on 9 August 1992 will be taken up for hearing in Colombo Monday lawyers appearing for the families of the victims said. "Justice delayed is justice denied. As with most cases in which SLA soldiers have been accused of massacring innocent Tamil civilians, a patently deliberate procrastinating strategy drawing on untenable pretexts is causing inordinate delays. This benefits the perpetrators of the murders," Mr.N. Kandasamy, a senior human rights activist in Colombo who has been monitoring the case for nine years told TamilNet Sunday.
Full story >>

EPDP regrets 'grave' blunder

[TamilNet, Monday, 28 August 2000, 10:30 GMT]
The pro-government Tamil group, Eelam People's Democratic Party (EPDP) Monday said it regretted a major blunder in an election ad it published yesterday in the Jaffna dailies Uthayan and Valampuri which may have cost it the patronage of the Sri Lankan President. "Chemmani exposed the Lady" ('Ammaniyai ambalappaduthiathu Chemmani) ran the EPDP's election ad in the Sunday edition of the papers, implicating the Sri Lankan President in the massacre of more than 600 Jaffna civilians arrested by the Sri Lankan security forces in 1996.
Full story >>

Chemmani case moved to Colombo

[TamilNet, Thursday, 01 June 2000, 08:25 GMT]
The Magisterial inquiry relating to Chemmani graves came up for hearing before Colombo Chief Magistrate G.D.Kulatilake Wednesday. Initially the Jaffna Magistrate's Court heard the case, but following an order by the Court of Appeal, the matter was transferred to the Colombo Magistrate.
Full story >>

Chemmani suspects remanded

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 14 March 2000, 09:43 GMT]
Jaffna additional magistrate, Mr.M.Ilancheliyan, remanded three captains and a private of the Sri Lanka Army along with a Police constable today in connection with the Chemmani mass graves case.
Full story >>

Chemmani arrest order faxed to CID

[TamilNet, Monday, 06 March 2000, 16:33 GMT]
Orders to arrest the Sri Lankan army personnel who were named as suspects in the murder of Tamil civilians in Jaffna were faxed to the Criminal Investigation Division (CID) of the Police in Colombo today from Mannar by the judge of the special courts hearing the case to prevent further delay in the legal proceedings.
Full story >>