'Sri Lanka Navy responsible for abductions in Mannaar'

[TamilNet, Saturday, 13 February 2010, 12:00 GMT]
Relatives of most of the disappeared persons in Mannaar district, who attended a discussion organised by Vavuniyaa Non-Violent Peace Organisation at Mannaar Divisional Secretariat on Friday have said that most of the disappeared were taken into 'custody' by the Sri Lanka Navy for 'interrogation'. The meeting was organised to collect details of the missing persons in the district. More than one hundred fifty civilians, majority of them were Tamils, had disappeared in the district during the last two years.
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HRW calls for international investigations into war crimes

[TamilNet, Friday, 22 January 2010, 04:57 GMT]
Noting that the "verbal acrobatics" of Sri Lankan officials in an attempt to "dismiss the shocking mobile phone video...showing Sri Lanka soldiers summarily executing naked and bound [Tamil] captives" evokes memories of Orwell's 1984, Peter Bouckaert, Human Rights Watch's emergencies director and an expert in humanitarian crises, in the Thursday edition of Guardian, warns that Sri Lankan officials cannot hide the reality of what happened during this brutal conflict and its continuing impact on Sri Lankan society, and that Sri Lanka's aggressive denial of its crimes only results in escalation of lost credibililty. HRW urges Ban Ki-moon to establish "an independent international investigation to establish the truth of what happened in Sri Lanka, an essential step toward accountability for the serious crimes committed there."
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SLA abductions of Tamil youth continue unabated in camps

[TamilNet, Monday, 30 November 2009, 02:19 GMT]
Several Tamil boys and girls including teenagers interned in the camps are called by name through announcing system by the Sri Lanka Army intelligence officers and are taken to unknown destinations, reports reaching from Vavuniyaa camps said. At least 10 young men and boys were thus 'abducted' on 21 November and around 30 youth, including girls, were taken on 27 November from Zone-0 IDP internment camp in Cheddiku'lam alone last week. They were taken in SLA vehicles and their family members lost all contacts with them since then, sources in Vavuniyaa told TamilNet Sunday.
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15 IDPs abducted from transit camp

[TamilNet, Sunday, 18 October 2009, 15:50 GMT]
Fifteen Internally Displaced Tamil men were abducted by a group of unidentified persons clad in army uniform Saturday evening from the transit camp located in the complex of Eachchilampathu Sri Shenpaga Maha Vidiyalayam in Seruvila division in Trincomalee district. Abducted IDPs are married and in the age group 25-45, according to complaints filed with the police and the civil authority by abductees relatives, civil sources in Trincomalee said.
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Miliband cosmetically presents catalogue of failures

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 14 October 2009, 01:18 GMT]
British Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs David Miliband on Tuesday presented a written statement to the House of Commons on the 'developments' in the island of Sri Lanka since his last visit in April in response to his concerns on minimising humanitarian impact, strengthening of the rule of law to address human rights and on setting out a political process to address the grievances of 'minorities'. Tamil circles find nothing worthy has been achieved in the last six months but the cosmetic presentation of the catalogue of failures by Mr. Miliband raises concern in them whether the British government is up for appeasement with the aggressive elements in the island.
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US Group opposes GSP+ extension

[TamilNet, Monday, 28 September 2009, 03:59 GMT]
In a submission to the Chairperson of Human Rights Subcommission of the European Union (EU), Ms. Heidi Hautala, US-based pressure group Tamils Against Genocide (TAG) said that the EU should terminate GSP+ privileges to Sri Lanka especially after the "failure of the UN system to uphold international human rights and humanitarian laws," and the "abdication of moral and diplomatic leadership by the UN Secretary General." The Subcommission is scheduled to meet on 1st October, and the decision on the status of the GSP+ to Sri Lanka is to be made on 15th October, according to sources in UK.
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Jaffna HRC gets Coordinating Officer after an year

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 23 September 2009, 04:36 GMT]
Sri Lanka Human Rights Commission (HRC) office in Jaffna which had been inactive for nearly an year without a Coordinating Officer (CO) is expected to function again with the appointment of a new CO, sources in Jaffna said. Mr. Thangavel Kanagaraj, who had been serving as CO in Trincomalee HRC, assumed duties as CO in HRC Jaffna office Tuesday.
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Rights group appeals for accountability for victims of disappearances, detainees

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 16 September 2009, 12:29 GMT]
The Civil Monitoring Mission in an appeal made after convening a conference on the "Disappeared and the Detained" said Wednesday, "[t]he end of war has not brought any end to our agonies and miseries. We feel more vulnerable today than in the past. National reconciliation and national unity have been reduced to mere rhetoric statements. Instead of bringing change towards constructive hope, the ending of war has brought new miseries to our people. We are today witnessing over two hundred and fifty thousand of our people languishing in military guarded camps...," and appealed to the Sri Lanka Government to account of all detainees in prison, and to "[p]rovide democratic space with legal assurance to human rights organizations tomonitor and evaluate the violations and represent the victims."
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BBC: UN patience wears thin in Sri Lanka

[TamilNet, Friday, 11 September 2009, 12:59 GMT]
The United Nations says it cannot continue to indefinitely fund the sprawling, overcrowded and militarized camp in which Sri Lanka has interned hundreds of thousands of Tamil civilians. Speaking to the BBC, the UN's Sri Lanka chief, Neil Buhne, said people should be allowed to leave the barbed wire-ringed Manik Farm camp. Mr Buhne also criticised Sri Lanka’s denial of access for the International Red Cross to 10,000 Tamils whom the government calls LTTE suspects. Meanwhile the UN says it is extremely concerned for two staff members arrested by Sri Lankan authorities in June, being amid reports they were mistreated during the early days of their detention.
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Roads lead to ruin – Prime Minister Wickramanayake

[TamilNet, Monday, 07 September 2009, 19:14 GMT]
Sri Lanka will not open up closed roads despite defeating the Tamil Tigers because this could cause the economy to collapse, the country’s Prime Minister was quoted as saying last week. "Do you remember what happened to the Soviet Union under Gorbachev? He opened the roads immediately and what happened? The entire country collapsed. We can't afford to do that," Ratnasiri Wickramanayake told a business forum in Colombo last Tuesday, according to the business news portal, Lanka Business Online.
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Economist: EU report places Sri Lanka's GSP+ concession in jeopardy

[TamilNet, Friday, 04 September 2009, 02:06 GMT]
"Its [Sri Lanka's] alleged wartime and other abuses make a grim catalogue: thousands of Tamil civilians allegedly killed by army shelling during the rebels’ last stand; scores of Tamils disappeared; nearly 300,000 Tamil war-displaced callously interned; murder and intimidation of journalists—including J.S. Tissainayagam, sentenced to 20 years hard labour on August 31st for criticising the army’s tactics," says an editorial in The Economist in its 3rd September edition, and points to a damning 130-page report by the European Union which concludes that "Sri Lanka has failed to honour important human-rights commitments, and is ineligible for GSP Plus."
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Creeping Talibanization in Sri Lanka - Prof. David

[TamilNet, Sunday, 16 August 2009, 10:13 GMT]
Noting several trends in Sri Lanka point to "early steps in [reaching for] totality of power," Prof Kumar David in a column in the weekend edition of "The Island" asserts that the cultural control exercised by the current Rajapakse regime are no different to those of "the Mullahs of Teheran and the iconoclastic Taliban fundamentalists." Prof. David summarizes the views of six lawyers expressed at a Lawyers’ Press Conference organised by the Platform for Freedom (PfF) early August where one notes that the scene is set for ever expanding authoritarianism as Sri Lanka's President flagrantly violates the "supreme law, the public [is] apathetic and the judiciary [is] powerless," and another points to the holding of 300,000 people "against their will, in defiance of local and international law" as "obscene infringement of the constitution."
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People in Jaffna live in fear – Suresh Premachandra

[TamilNet, Saturday, 18 July 2009, 07:32 GMT]
“The people in Jaffna live in fear of the government armed forces and the paramilitary groups operating with them. They are scared to air their views or to openly participate in election related activities,” Suresh Premachandran, Tamil National Alliance (TNA) Jaffna district parliamentarian, told TamilNet in a special interview Friday in Jaffna. “Though government ministers invading Jaffna continue to offer promises to the people of Jaffna they cannot be deceived as they fully well know that the promises will not be kept because the government does not have the money to fulfill the promises,” he further said.
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‘1,400 dying each week in Manik Farm camp’ – The Times

[TamilNet, Friday, 10 July 2009, 03:37 GMT]
About 1,400 people are dying every week at the giant Manik Farm internment camp set up in Sri Lanka to detain Tamil refugees from the nation’s bloody civil war, senior international aid sources have told The Times. The shocking toll lends credence to allegations that the Government, which has termed the internment sites “welfare villages”, has actually constructed concentration camps to house 300,000 people, the paper said. Most of the deaths are the result of water-borne diseases, particularly diarrhoea, a senior relief worker told The Times on condition of anonymity.
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Eastern armed Muslim groups surrender weapons

[TamilNet, Sunday, 05 July 2009, 11:23 GMT]
Eastern Muslim armed groups Saturday afternoon initially handed over dozens of automatic weapons including sixteen T 56 rifles to the police in response to the amnesty period that ended on July 4 afternoon 3:00 p.m. The event took place in Kaaththaankudi Jumma Meera Mosque in the presence of the Eastern Deputy Inspector General of Police Edison Gunatilake and Provincial Minister M. L. A. M.Hisbullah.
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Phone threats to Tamil groups, political parties contesting JMC election

[TamilNet, Monday, 22 June 2009, 15:34 GMT]
Persons alleged to be government supporters have begun issuing anonymous phone threats continually to prominent persons related to Tamil independent groups and political parties contesting the forthcoming Jaffna Municipal Council (JMC) election, sources in Jaffna said. Meanwhile, supporters of Minister Douglas Devanada in Kurunakar area had cautioned him of defeat in the election if he contests under the Beetle Leaf symbol of the ruling United Peoples Freedom Alliance (UPFA) and advised him to contest under the ‘Vee’nai’ symbol of his Eelam Peoples’ Democratic Party (EPDP), when he met them Sunday to learn of their opinion, the sources added.
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Two UN staff reported missing in Vavuniyaa

[TamilNet, Friday, 19 June 2009, 09:32 GMT]
A Tamil staff of United Nations Office for Project Services (UNOPS) and another Tamil staff of the UNHCR, both attached to the UN offices in Vavuniyaa have been reported missing for the past 3 days, civil sources in Vavuniyaa said.
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SLA interrogates Tamil daily editor in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 26 May 2009, 04:53 GMT]
Sri Lanka Army (SLA) civil administration office summoned Monday the editor of a popular Tamil daily in Jaffna for interrogation into a news item related to abduction of children for ransom, published in the front page of the daily, sources in Jaffna said. The daily, however, intimidated by SLA authorities in Palaali head quarters and SLA-backed paramilitaries, had published a refutation of the story published earlier.
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Students boycott schools in Batticaloa against abduction of girl student

[TamilNet, Thursday, 07 May 2009, 14:07 GMT]
Students of nearly 25 schools in and around Batticaloa town continued their boycott of schools for the ninth day Thursday in protest against the abduction of Satheskumar Thinusika, a grade 3 girl student of Batticaloa Koaddaimunai Junior School by a paramilitary group operating with Sri Lanka Army (SLA), sources in Batticaloa said. Meanwhile, parents alleged that the police have shot and killed three suspects in order to save the main perpetrators who hold high positions in the government, the sources added.
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TNA parliamentarians condemn disappearance of students in Eastern Province

[TamilNet, Friday, 01 May 2009, 16:12 GMT]
“How could the government say that normalcy has been restored to Eastern Province and that civil administration takes place when many students in Batticaloa, Ampaa’rai and Trincomalee have gone missing?” Tamil National Alliance (TNA) Batticaloa parliamentarians asked, in a joint report which called on the government to take action to have the abducted students released at the earliest, sources in Batticaloa said.
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