Eastern University students staged a protest demonstration Wednesday against the University administration for not taking steps obtain the release of two fellow students arrested and detained by the police for four months ago, sources in Batticaloa said. An earlier demonstration by the students failed to initiate any action from the campus administration, student leaders said.
Sasikaran, the president of the Student Union and a third year Agricultural Faculty student, was arrested and detained by Ea'raavoor police on suspicion of involvement in the killing of a Sinhalese student in the student hostel on 21 August.
Sasikaran is still under detention.
A Commerce Management faculty student arrested in connection with a bomb blast in Kalladi is the second student under detention.
Wednesday, December 31, 2008
Sri Lanka: Batticaloa Muslim trader abducted in Colombo
A Muslim trader was abducted in Colombo Sunday by unidentified armed persons while he was waiting near a mosque in Maradana. He has been identified as M.A.Abdul Majeed 59, a resident of Oaddamaavadi in Vaazhaichcheanai police division in Batticaloa district.
City honoured for work post-tsunami in Sri Lanka
Port Alberni was honoured recently for its involvement in reconstruction efforts following the tsunami of 2004 in Southeast Asia that killed more than 225,000 people.
When the Federation of Canadian Municipalities (FCM) put together reconstruction efforts, Port Alberni immediately jumped aboard.
City of Port Alberni staff were involved in Batticaloa and Galle, Sri Lanka and responded directly to local needs identified by the local authorities devastated by the tsunami.
City manager Ken Watson participated in Batticaloa where activities supported the improvement of the public works systems with a special focus on drainage systems and storm water managers.
City engineer Guy Cicon was involved in Galle, focusing on a pavement management program to assist in the reconstruction and rebuilding of infrastructure.
"Our combined efforts with Batticaloa and Galle in Sri Lanka is a prime example of how different orders of government in different countries can work together toward the betterment of our respective citizens," said Mayor McRae.
MOU BETWEEN TMVP-GOSL-UNICEF ON CHILD SOLDIERS!!!
An office to monitor the process of releasing children who were among the TMVP cadres in the East will be established in the Batticaloa Government Agent's Office in the second week of January.
This move has been taken as a result of the Memorandum of Understanding signed between the Government of Sri Lanka, Tamil Makkal Viduthalai Puligal (TMVP) and UNICEF early in December to work closely with each other to complete the process of releasing children from the fighting carders of the TMVP within the next three months.
Eastern Province Chief Minister Sivanesathurai Chandrakanthan, TMVP leader Vinayagamoorthy Muralitharan, Commissioner General of Rehabilitation and Secretary to the Justice and Law Reforms Ministry Suhada Gamlath on behalf of the GOSL and the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) entered into the MoU. The Commissioner General of Rehabilitation Suhada Gamlath said that schools and rehabilitation centres will be established in the Eastern Province on the instruction of President Mahinda Rajapaksa to accommodate children who had been misled into joining any form of armed conflict.
According to the UNICEF database, by the end of October 2008, it had received reports of 545 children being recruited by the TMVP of which 133 still remain within its fold, including 62 who are still under 18.
Following the provincial elections in the Eastern Province in May, the TMVP clearly stated its continued commitment to stop the recruitment of children and release all children in their ranks.
During the three month process the CGR and the UNICEF will ensure that information on children recruited by the TMVP, provided the families concerned consent, is shared with the TMVP to facilitate children's release.
They would also ensure that the families of children to be released are contacted and supported in the preparations for children's return home and ensure that the children who cannot return home for whatever reason are provided with alternative care arrangements in keeping with their best interests.
The CGR and the UNICEF would ensure that the children released are provided with reintegration assistance and develop modalities with the TMVP for planning and coordinating actions for the prevention of recruitment and facilitating children's release, care, protection and reintegration.
dailynews.lk
Tuesday, December 30, 2008
Mahinda Rajapaksa issues an ultimatum to the LTTE: free people trapped in the war zone or face a ban.
A SRI LANKAN Tamil outside a refugee shelter in Batticaloa on March 9, 2008. Tens of thousands of Tamils who have fled areas under the control of the LTTE are detained in Army-run camps, says a Human Rights Watch report.
THE ultimatum issued to the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) by President Mahinda Rajapaksa on the afternoon of December 22 was proof enough that the situation in battle-scarred Sri Lanka could get only worse as 2009 dawns. In a speech to a mixed gathering at the Presidential Palace, Rajapaksa asked the Tigers to allow people trapped in the war zone to cross into safe areas by January 1 or face a ban with all “its consequences”.
The ultimatum came amid pitched battles between the Sri Lankan forces and the Tigers and claims and counter-claims of high casualties on the other side by both parties. The intensity of the battles could be gauged from the fact that though on November 26 the military predicted the “imminent fall” of Kilinochchi, a month later the picture was still far from clear.
Implied in Rajapaksa’s message are two ideas. One, there are no signs of an early end to the two-and-a-half–year-old Eelam War IV. Two, the government is determined to “fight to the finish”. There could be no other explanation for the threat of a ban now by the President against an outfit which has been engaged in an all-out war against the armed forces since July 2006.
No one was, in fact, surprised at Rajapaksa’s ultimatum. Many feel a ban on the Tigers is long overdue and has not been imposed by the government for a number of reasons. One of them is that it wants to appear reasonable in the eyes of the international community. A ban on the LTTE should logically have followed the government’s abrogation, in the beginning of 2008, of the Norwegian-brokered 2002 Cease Fire Agreement (CFA) on the grounds that the accord had become a farce.
The position of the government vis-a-vis the legal status of the LTTE has been incongruous for quite some time. Ironically, the LTTE is either banned or kept under watch in nearly 30 countries across the globe even as it remains a legal entity in the country where it is fighting a secessionist war against the state. Indeed, since the current phase of hostilities began about two and a half years ago, a debate has raged within the upper echelons of the Rajapaksa government on the pros and cons of a formal ban. The question was left hanging following the majority view that in practical terms a ban served little purpose.
While serving a notice on the LTTE either to let citizens in the areas under its control leave or face proscription, Rajapaksa charged the Tigers with holding innocent people as human shields against the advancing military. His assertion was corroborated by several accounts, including a December 23 report titled “Besieged, displaced and detained” by the Human Rights Watch (HRW). There are no precise numbers of the civilians trapped in the war zone of Wanni; estimates vary from 230,000 to 300,000.
The HRW has indicted the Tigers for the plight of the ordinary citizens caught in the fight between the government forces and the LTTE and emphasises the responsibility of the government to protect the interests of the people. “As the LTTE has lost ground to advancing government forces, civilians have been squeezed into a shrinking conflict zone. The encroaching fighting has left many homeless, hungry, and sick, and placed their lives increasingly in danger,” it notes.
In the name of security the government has compounded the plight of ordinary citizens by ordering the United Nations and international humanitarian agencies to leave the Wanni. The HRW report details the humanitarian crisis created by the government’s sweeping restrictions on humanitarian agencies and its policy of detaining indefinitely in military-guarded camps virtually all civilians fleeing LTTE-controlled areas.
“The LTTE has forcibly blocked civilians in areas under its control from crossing into government-held territory, compelling them to move with retreating LTTE forces. As a result, only about a thousand civilians from the Wanni have managed to reach non-combat zones and most of these, including many families, have been detained in government camps. The LTTE also has continued to force civilians, including children, to join LTTE ranks and to carry out abusive forced labour,” says the HRW report.
With humanitarian and civilian movement in and out of the Wanni restricted by both the Sri Lankan authorities and the LTTE, affected communities find it increasingly difficult to obtain desperately needed humanitarian assistance.
While conceding that officials have reason to vet new arrivals in order to ensure that LTTE fighters are not concealed among them, the HRW raises a matter of serious concern. According to its investigations, all those who cross into government-held areas, including entire families, are being detained by security forces indefinitely in camps with little prospect of joining their relatives or host-families elsewhere in Sri Lanka. “This makes them particularly vulnerable to extrajudicial killings, enforced disappearances, and other human rights abuses rampant in government-controlled territory. Forced to remain, and too fearful to flee, many are now also beyond the reach of the humanitarian agencies who seek to assist them. The government should immediately end the arbitrary detention of civilians seeking to flee the conflict,” says the HRW.
The threat of proscribing the LTTE by the Rajapaksa government is to be assessed against this background. While asserting that he “will not agree to any ceasefire that will strengthen the LTTE in any form”, Rajapaksa has left no one in doubt that the road ahead is hard. “Many evil forces will conspire to prevent the victory against terrorism, but we shall overcome them all. There will be many attempts to create division, crisis and unrest in the country, all of which are targeted at helping the cause of Tiger terror. Attempts will be made to create a negative public mood in the battle against terror. But we will face the biggest challenges and obstacles to make 2009 the Year of Heroic Victory against Terrorism,” he said.
Judiciary versus executiveRajapaksa also used the occasion to speak his mind on what is billed as an impending clash between the judiciary and the executive over a number of subjects in general and the pricing of petroleum products in particular. The recent order of the Supreme Court of Sri Lanka asking the government not to impose more than a 100 per cent tax on petrol, and the reluctance of the government to comply with the order have led to fears of a clash between the judiciary and the executive. Questioning the rationale of the government in selling a litre of petrol at (Sri Lanka) Rs.122, the court had directed that the price be reduced to Rs.100. (The exchange rate for US dollar is Sri Lanka Rs.108).
In an indirect criticism of the court order, in the same speech in which he put the LTTE on notice, Rajapaksa noted that the government needed revenue to meet the demands of development and the costs of the military operations against terrorism. “The needs of a mere 4 per cent of the people who use petrol for cars could not supersede the needs of more than 90 per cent of the people who travelled by bus and train,” he argued.
Targeting the main opposition, the United National Party, he maintained that those who petitioned the courts on the price of petrol were the same people who campaigned abroad against the extension of the GST+ (goods and services tax) relief for the country. “The issue of taxation and duties should not be looked at in isolation, but as a whole. Some people may today seek relief in court against the 300 per cent duty on cigarettes and arrack, the 450 per cent duty on whisky or the 500 per cent duty on imported luxury cars,” he said.
Little wonder, the presidential ultimatum to the LTTE hardly generated any enthusiasm. The English daily The Island, in its editorial, expressed scepticism about it. “It is only wishful thinking that [LTTE chief Velupillai] Prabakaran will stick to the President’s deadline,” it noted, adding that instead of setting deadlines for Prabakaran the President should be soliciting the help of India – especially the State of Tamil Nadu – other members of the international community, international non-governmental organisations, priests, et al, who are pressing for a ceasefire, to secure the release of the Wanni civilians.
Source :FrontLine
Living in constant fear, the Tamils are fugitives in their own land
When our white van stopped in the Muslim hamlet of Saintha Maruthu in Batticaloa district on the night of November 23, residents viewed us with fear. So my friend from the locality introduced me to them, “She is a journalist from Chennai.”
For the Tamils in Sri Lanka, a white van is terror on four wheels. “White vans have been used to abduct people, especially young Tamil men,” my friend told me. It was in such a van that Madura Guna Singam was abducted from Colombo last June. “My son was staying with my eldest daughter, Kalanayagi, in Colombo. I knocked on all doors. God knows what happened to my son,” said Madura’s mother, Velayutham Pushpavalli, 60, from Kilinochchi.
Madura’s sister Sivapatham, who stays in Vavuniya, said her brother had no links with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). “My brother was innocent. He was a van driver. They might have taken him thinking he was with the LTTE. Please give him back to us,” she said with folded hands.
Soon after the abduction, the family informed the police, but they did nothing. “We tried every avenue, the Red Cross and the human rights organisation. We met minister Douglas Devananda three times. We do not know who abducted my son and why,” said Pushpavalli. Though fragile and old, she has not given up. “I am sure he is alive and will come back,” she said.
Jayanthi Krishnan’s husband, Pushparaja Krishnakumar, 34, was abducted from Colombo in June. “Some people came to his shop in a white van and took him away,” said Jayanthi, who has a two-year-old son, Vekesh. “To run the family, I had to sell off the shop. If my husband does not return, I will have to go begging with my child,” she said.
Mukunda Sivagunaratnam, 33, was waiting to join his wife in Canada when he was arrested in June. His mother, Selvajothi, feels she led him to his fate. “He was living in London and came here to get himself registered so that he could join his wife in Canada. I suggested he join a computer course. He was abducted from the computer centre,” she said. Mukunda had called up his family saying that he was being taken by the police. Selvajothi and her daughter Darshini approached the police, who said they were unaware about the abduction. Said Darshini: “We are sure the army has done it because after the abduction, the special task force came to our house twice for inquiry.”
Unaware of Mukunda’s fate, the Canadian embassy recently sent a letter to him, asking him to appear for a medical test. “Mukunda would have been overjoyed to see the letter,” said Selvajothi. As proof of her son’s innocence, she has the ‘no objection’ certificate issued to him by the police for his travel abroad. “He had a clean record. He was a simple person. Why would anybody want to snatch him away from us?” she asked.
Idayarani knows that her son Robinson, abducted five months ago, is in Boosa detention camp in Galle, near Colombo. “There is no sign of his release. We are not allowed to see him. There is no inquiry. He just exists there,” she said. The family received a ransom call, but Idayarani cannot pay it.
Mano Ganesan, MP from Colombo and head of the Civil Monitoring Commission that tracks human rights issues of the Tamils, feels the abductions were carried out with the connivance of the army. “Anybody with a number on his mobile phone that the government thinks belongs to an LTTE cadre can be picked up, abducted or shot,” he said. Reports say there have been around 3,000 white van abductions in Sri Lanka since the ceasefire ended in 2005; 300 of them were in Colombo.
The Tamils live in constant fear of being abducted or shot. They suffer the ignominy of having to register themselves in their own places, and live as a displaced people in their own country. The government had made registration mandatory for Tamils who came to Colombo in the last five years. “They think every Tamil-speaking person is a terrorist. It shows they don’t trust us,” said Murugan, a hotel employee.
Despite the government’s statement that civilians are not affected by the war, 3,000 families are living in camps for Internally Displaced Persons in Batticaloa. Displaced during the ‘liberation’ of the east, they cannot return to their homes, which, as a woman said, “are in high security zones.” The life of IDPs on the war front in the Wanni region is even worse.
My attempts to get the permission to go to Jaffna failed. Later, a lawyer friend said it was easier for Sri Lankan passport holders to get permission. “In a family I know, the parents had UK passports and the daughter a Sri Lankan passport. The daughter went to Jaffna, but the parents’ request was rejected,” she said. “Your governments will make it a big issue if you are affected. We can be shot like dogs in Sri Lanka. No one bothers about Tamils.”
The peace in government-controlled areas is not without violence. Said S.L.M. Hanifa, a Tamil writer in Batticaloa: “We have suffered more during times of peace and ceasefire than during times of war.”
Ten 'Governance based Intervention Programme' clinics will be held in the North and East Provinces early next year
12/31/08:9:08 AM
Ten 'Governance based Intervention Programme' clinics will be held in the North and East Provinces early next year under the Tsunami Affected Areas Rebuilding Project (TAARP) to resolve overdue legal and administration related issues of the people in the tsunami affected areas.
TAARP Director and Secretary to the Justice and Law Reforms Ministry Suhada Gamlath said so far three such programme clinics were held in Batticaloa and Trincomalee Districts at Divisional Secretariat level to offer legal assistance, governance and anti corruption methods.
The three clinics held in Kaluwanchikudi, Manmunai North and Town and Gravets in Trincomalee held under the supervision of the Justice and Law Reforms Ministry were participated with 5,473 persons and 5,010 appeals were presented. As immediate action was taken, 1,498 grievances were solved the same day while 3,299 appeals were forwarded to the relevant authorities to work out resolutions. 440 applications were rejected as they lacked credibility.
The clinic was presented with appeals of legal and administrative related issues inclusive of issuance of identity cards, birth certificates, death certificates, marriage certificates, seeking legal advice and litigation help and governance issues.
The programme clinic is consists of Divisional Secretaries, Grama Niladaries and institutions like Registrar General Department, Department of Registration of Persons, Ministry of Social Service and Social Welfare, Ministry of Land and Land Development, Probation and NCPA, Legal Aid, Human Rights Commission, Police Department, Department of Fisheries, Special Mediation Board, Tsunami Housing and Compensation, Bribery or Corruption Commission, National Housing Development Authority and Public Administration Ministry.
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