Northern fishermen society representatives to hold talks with Indian counterparts

[TamilNet, Thursday, 08 July 2010, 07:25 GMT]
Representatives of fishermen societies from the districts of Jaffna and Mannar decided in a meeting held in Vavuniyaa Wednesday to send a group of fishermen society representatives to India in August to hold talks with the representatives of fishermen societies in South India to stop Indian fishermen encroaching the northern seas in Sri Lanka, sources in Vavuniyaa said. The issue of Indian fishermen attacking northern fishermen is also to be discussed in the talks, the sources added.
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Tamil Nadu delegation not satisfied after meeting Rajapaksa in New Delhi

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 09 June 2010, 16:49 GMT]
A delegation of 21 MPs from Tamil Nadu led by T.R. Baalu failed to secure concrete assurances on political settlement, release of Prisoners of War or resettlement of Tamils after meeting Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa in New Delhi on Wednesday. In a televised comment in Sun News, Mr. T.R. Balu said that there was some progress, but added he was not satisfied with the output of the meeting. The Sri Lankan delegation headed by Mr. Rajapaksa and the Indian delegation led by Dr. Manmohan Singh inked seven agreements, which included bilateral counter-insurgency and corporate deals. In the meantime, fifteen Tamil Nadu fishermen from Rameswaram were admitted to hospital after they were stripped off their clothes, tortured with ice on their heads and were forced to eat salt and raw fish by the Sri Lanka Navy on Tuesday off Kachchatheevu in Palk Strait, media reports in Tamil Nadu said.
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UNICEF helps to re-establish maternal and child health facilities in Ki'linochchi

[TamilNet, Thursday, 27 May 2010, 17:20 GMT]
UNICEF Representative Philippe Duamelle and Minister of Economic Development, Basil Rajapakse Thursday re-opened the new facility of emergency obstetric and pediatric care at the Kil’inochchi General Hospital. In addition to the Ki’linochchi hospital, Minister Basil Rajapaksa and Philippe Duamelle also opened the Musali maternity building in Mannar district constructed by UNICEF. “This project will serve the health needs of thousands of women and children now returning back to their homes,” UNICEF Representative Philippe Duamelle said at the opening event in Ki’linochchi.
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Dengue spreads in Mannar, 17 detected in Pesalai

[TamilNet, Friday, 02 April 2010, 11:41 GMT]
Dengue fever is spreading fast in Pesalai in Mannaar district, and seventeen persons have been admitted to the Mannaar general hospital, according to a medial officer of the hospital. Mannaar District Public Health Department has been taking steps to control the spread of dengue following an alert issued by the Mannar general hospital authorities.
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Pilgrims to Paalaitheevu St. Antony’s church suspect presence of Chinese navy

[TamilNet, Sunday, 07 March 2010, 15:11 GMT]
Pilgrims who returned from Paalaitheevu after attending the lent period prayers in St. Antony’s church Sunday said that they had seen many Chinese Tents and food packets with Chinese writing on them during the annual festival held Saturday and Sunday. Sri Lanka Navy (SLN) occupies many of the pilgrims’ halls behind the church and no one was allowed to enter them, the devotees said. Chinese navy presence in Kachchatheevu has been confirmed by Tamil Nadu journalists who had participated in the St. Antony’s Church festival recently, according to a Tamil daily in Tamil Nadu.
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324 candidates contest Jaffna electorate for 9 seats

[TamilNet, Friday, 26 February 2010, 14:43 GMT]
Until Friday noon 15 registered political parties and 12 independent groups had submitted their lists of candidates to contest parliamentary election in Jaffna district electorate competing for nine seats for Jaffna electorate, sources in Jaffna said. Meanwhile, the nomination lists of Sri Lanka National Front political party and four independent groups were rejected by Jaffna Assistant Commissioner of Elections, the sources added.
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Academic exposes habitual collaboration of Chennai in bungling geopolitics

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 09 February 2010, 02:12 GMT]
Writing on the negotiations of 1964 Srimao-Shastri Pact that caused adverse impact on the demography of Tamils in Sri Lanka, Professor V. Suryanarayan says, “The most pathetic member of the Indian team was Ramiah, a Cabinet Minister from Tamil Nadu. According to informed sources, throughout the discussions, Ramiah did not utter a single word on behalf of the Tamil plantation workers, who wanted to remain in Sri Lanka and become Sri Lankan citizens.” Mr. Karunanidhi, for his personal consolidation of power, collaborated with New Delhi in ceding Kachchatheevu to Sri Lanka in 1974. Had he challenged it in the Supreme Court, the India-Sri Lanka relations might have taken a different turn, the academic said in a paper he read last week.
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Tamil Eelam not a lost cause: Fr. Jegath Gaspar

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 03 November 2009, 01:14 GMT]
“I don't think Tamil Eelam is a lost cause. If there was any point of time in history that Eelam was a possibility, I think it is now. Tamils all over the world are more determined than ever,” says Fr. Jegath Gaspar Raj, Chennai based Catholic priest and international broadcast journalist in an interview to TamilNet Sunday. “I believe that geopolitics or foreign policy or security policies are never static; they are ever dynamic, they will keep changing. I am confident that at some point of time India will come to realize that the only strategic leverage it has against the Chinese-Sri Lankan combine in the Indian Ocean is the Indo-Tamil combination,” he said, pinning the responsibility for the failure of Indian foreign policy to M K Narayanan Doctrine.
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Duplicitous Colombo bereft of excuses on holding internees - ICG

[TamilNet, Saturday, 03 October 2009, 22:25 GMT]
Andrew Stroehlein, International Crisis Group's Communications Director, during his testimony to the European Parliament Subcommittee on Human Rights on the situation in Sri Lanka Thursday, noted the poor and deteriorating conditions in the internment camps where more than 264,000 Tamils are being held by Colombo, and said, "[t]he worst kind of duplicity was seen just a few weeks ago, when the [Sri Lanka] government announced it had released 10,000 displaced persons. In fact, we know at least 3,300 people had been moved from an internment camp to another detention facility," and added, "Sri Lankan government has run out of excuses for continuing to keep these hundreds of thousands of innocent people prisoner."
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Internment, poisoning hopes of reconciliation - Economist

[TamilNet, Friday, 02 October 2009, 05:29 GMT]
"The fate of a quarter of a million interned Tamils is poisoning Sri Lanka’s hopes of ethnic reconciliation....So long as Tamils feel abused by a racist Sinhalese state, the conflict may resume. Economic development of their shattered regions, which the government is planning, is unlikely to change that. Hence the government’s continued war-footing—but this is in turn also reinforcing Tamil grievances," a feature in the 1st October edition of The Economist said,
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3 foreign Bishops visit Vavuniyaa IDP camps

[TamilNet, Monday, 07 September 2009, 11:44 GMT]
Bishop Monsvlovnni Battista from Italy and Bishop John Stanley Arnold and Bishop John Anthony Rawsthrone from the United Kingdom (UK) during the weekend visited the camps in the Menik farm and in Cheddiku'lam in Vavuniyaa where hundreds of thousands internally displaced people are held. The Caritas of Sri Lanka had organized the visit.
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Tamil civilian reported missing in Mannaar

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 02 September 2009, 08:30 GMT]
A Tamil civilian from Saanthipuram in Mannaar is reported missing since 23 August, according to complaints made by his wife to the police and human rights organization in Mannar Tuesday.
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SLA, police ban rally in Mannaar

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 19 August 2009, 17:48 GMT]
Sri Lanka Army and Police Wednesday banned the demonstration and rally organized by the Consortium of Humanitarian Agencies (CHA) in Mannaar demanding the immediate resettlement of internally displaced families detained in camps in Vavuniyaa, lifting all restrictions on travelling and entering hospitals in Vavuniyaa and Mannaar and to find a political solution for the conflict and the removal of restriction on fishing and farming.
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Free civilians from detention camps, HRW tells Sri Lanka

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 29 July 2009, 11:49 GMT]
The Sri Lankan government should immediately release the more than 280,000 internally displaced Tamil civilians held in detention camps, Ney York-based rights group, Human Rights Watch (HRW), again demanded Wednesday. “The government has effectively sealed off the detention camps from outside scrutiny. Human rights organizations, journalists, and other independent observers are not allowed inside,” HRW said. Condemning the mass detention as “outrageous”, HRW cited comments by Walter Kälin, the UN secretary-general’s representative on internally displaced persons, that: “Prolonged internment of such persons would not only amount to arbitrary detention but it also aggravates the humanitarian situation needlessly.”
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Colombo doctors to investigate outbreak of meningitis, encephalitis in Vavuniyaa

[TamilNet, Sunday, 12 July 2009, 17:29 GMT]
Six medical officers from Colombo are scheduled to visit IDP camps which are described as internment camps by human rights agencies in Vavuniya tomorrow to investigate a suspected outbreak of meningitis and encephalitis, reported from the Vavuniyaa General Hospital. Meanwhile the Government Medical Officers Association (GMOA) has charged that a severe shortage of nurses and pharmacists in the Vavuniyaa camps is compounding health problems there.
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Restrictions for Tamil civilians visiting Mannaar

[TamilNet, Thursday, 25 June 2009, 12:18 GMT]
Tamil civilians visiting Mannar from other districts are being subjected to severe interrogation by the Sri Lanka Navy and police before being allowed to enter the town, according to sources in Mannaar. The vistors are being issued with passes after the scrutiny of their national identity cards. Buses coming from other districts are halted at Mannaar Fort checkpoint and passengers are subjected to search. However, permanent residents of Mannaar are allowed without restriction to enter or leave Mannaar, media reports said.
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Extortionists arrested in Mannaar

[TamilNet, Sunday, 31 May 2009, 06:35 GMT]
Mannaar Police arrested six persons including a woman who are alleged to have been extorting money from traders in Mannar Friday. The gang of extortionists is said to have been directed by their leader via telephone from Anuradhapura remand prison where he has remanded. Six suspects are detained in Mannaar police station for further interrogation, media reports said.
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Injured Vanni children handed over to relatives in Mannaar

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 06 May 2009, 04:18 GMT]
Mannaar Magistrate Mr. A. Judson Monday ordered six injured children, who lost their parents in Vanni Sri Lanka armed force offensive and being warded in Mannaar general hospital for treatment, to be handed over to their close relatives.
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Fr. Karunaratnam remembered on First anniversary

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 21 April 2009, 11:24 GMT]
Mr. K.Sivapalan, Deputy Chairperson of North East Secretariat on Human Rights (NESoHR), on the first year anniversary of the killing of founder Chairperson of NESoHR, Rev.Father Mariampillai Xavier Karunaratnam, recounts his services to the community, and asks why the International Community is standing by as a Rwanda unfolds in Vanni. Father Karunaratnam was killed by the Deep Penetration Unit (DPU) of the Sri Lanka Army (SLA) on 20th April 2008 while he was driving from his residential prayer and counseling center in Vavunikku'lam.
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LTTE welcomes US initiative, asks Sri Lanka to listen to IC

[TamilNet, Monday, 20 April 2009, 07:35 GMT]
The LTTE on Monday, in a significant statement, recognized and welcomed a refreshing attitude in US, different from the other countries. It pleaded the Sri Lanka government to listen to international opinion, to stop the war and enter into negotiations. But at the same time it warned Colombo of dire consequences if the war is continued. "The LTTE and the fight for our freedom will also continue. The methods may vary but Sri Lanka will never be able to live in peace as it imagines a military victory will bring. However, for the record, the LTTE would like to emphasize again that it is always ready to explore peaceful means to resolve the conflict”, the LTTE statement issued from the political headquarters in Vanni, read.
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