Sri Lanka News Updates with Discussions

They have worked hard to achieve the peace, now it looks as though the people of Northern Ireland could be set for prosperity and a golden future. The most extensive geological survey ever undertaken has revealed that Ulster is sitting on a potential
goldmine.

Traces of gold have been found under the fertile soil of counties Down, Tyrone, Derry and Antrim - while platinum has been detected in east Antrim.

Already, nine different international mining and exploration companies have shown an interest in carrying out more examinations - with firms from Canada, South Africa and Britain taking out licenses to explore further.

The current international focus on human rights is insufficient to capture the cold calculations and reasoning in the intentions of the Sri Lankan state`s colonisation of Tamil and Muslim areas.
In the context of President Mahinda Rajapakse`s claimed victory over the LTTE in the Eastern Province and his pledge to resolve conflicts and tensions therein through development under the auspices of the `180 Day Eastern Development Plan`, a focus on the current situation there is in order.

UPDATE (Sri Lanka): Further list of victims of extrajudicial killings, disappearance

UPDATE ON URGENT APPEAL UPDATE ON URGETN APPEAL UPDATE ON URGENT APPEAL

ASIAN HUMAN RIGHTS COMMISSION ? URGENT APPEALS PROGRAMME

Update on Urgent Appeal

18 September 2007

[RE: UP-061-2007: SRI LANKA: List of another 22 disappeared persons UA-113-2007: SRI LANKA: List of 81 disappeared documented for the last 8 months UP-117-2007: SRI LANKA: Killing and disappearance of 57 humanitarian workers reported]

By Amantha Perera

Enforced disappearances had increased in the country, Amnesty International (AI) said last week.

`AI has documented a worrying increase in enforced disappearances in Sri Lanka in recent months, with at least 21 people reportedly disappearing in August in Jaffna district alone,

AI said in a statement to mark the International Day of the Disappeared on August 30 adding `the increase reflects a worsening pattern, with the National Human Rights Commission of Sri Lanka reporting that hundreds of people have disappeared nationwide since January 2007, in addition to at least 1,000 in 2006.`

The mistakes of Sri Lanka and other newly independent `failed states` made Singapore go in a different direction, its founding prime minister told the International Herald Tribune (IHT) in an interview.

Lee Kwan Yew, now minister mentor, said when Singapore broke off from the Malayan Federation it had a hostile neighbour and population made of Chinese, Malays and immigrants from the Indian subcontinent.`The basis of a nation just was not there.

5,749 people Disappeared in 20 months.

The UN Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances is currently reviewing 5,749 outstanding cases of enforced disappearance in Sri Lanka, the Amnesty International secretariat said in its latest international monthly newsletter.

According to the London-based rights group, since 2006, hundreds of people have reportedly been abducted by the security forces or armed groups in areas in the north and east of Sri Lanka as well as in Colombo or forcibly disappeared.

This is a typical scene of what happens to Tamils in Sri Lanka but very rarely pictured. This was taken without the knowledge of the police officers. Not a single pilgrim who got beaten dared to complain of this brutality for fear of well founded torture at the hands of the same police. In the 50-year history Sri Lankan terrorist brutality by the police there were only one case ever reached the court. That was the massacre of 28 Tamil youth suspects held at Bindunuweewa detention centre. The police and the army comprised of the majority ethnic community set the villagers to hack and cut the Tamil suspects. When the case went the court all the accused were freed by the judges all of whom were from the same community. There was no retrial nor any justice done to the relatives of those victims.

Two Tamils shot dead in Jaffna, one youth went to the army camp to collect his ID is missing on 29th, fishermen attacked and a street name in Batticaloa is Sinhalamised.

Youth went SLA camp missing : A youth went to the SLA camp to get his ID card missing in Vadamaradchi on 29th July. SLA took away the ID card of Kumarasamy Sivanesan at a checkpoint and asked Sivanesan to come to Thondamanaru SLA camp to get his ID card. Kumarasamy Sivanesan aged 25 from Arasady, Thondamanaru in Vadamaradchi went to the SLA camp around 3.00pm to get his ID card and still missing.

One-year-old baby, mothers_day.jsp' class=black>mother wounded in SLA shelling in Mannaar

A mother and her one-year-old baby were wounded in artillery fire by the Sri Lanka Army from Thallaadi SLA camp around 6.00am on 20 th July.

One-year-old Dusmithan Anisdan with injuries in his hands and his 30-year-old mother, Sagayamma Anisdan, wounded in throat, in indiscriminate artillery fire by the SLA around 5:30 a.m. towards civilan settlements in Aalankulam and Vaddakkandal in LTTE territory in Mannaar.

By Amantha Perera

The International Commission of Jurists (ICJ) last week called for an investigation into the missing bullet in the Muttur murder investigation.

`There is an urgent need to investigate and clarify if a 5.56 mm bullet was recovered from the skull of one of the victims.

`Dr. (Malcolm) Dodd, an independent, Australian pathologist who was invited by the government to observe a re-examination of the bodies in October 2006, concluded that one 5.56 mm projectile was removed from the skull of one of the victims. The Government Analyst was provided with the ballistics exhibits removed from the bodies during the re-examination and prepared his report dated February 19, 2007 which was submitted to the Kantale Court on March 7, 2007. In his report he identifies only 7.62 mm bullets or parts of bullets,` the ICJ said last week.

By Yohan Perera

Constitutional Affairs Minister and Communist Party General Secretary D.E.W. Gunasekera said yesterday that the LTTE cannot be defeated politically although it is defeated militarily.

Minister Gunasekera made this point at a ceremony held to mark the 64th anniversary of the Communist Party of Sri Lanka in Colombo yesterday.

Mr. Gunasekera explained that there was an ethnic problem in the country and that there should be a solution to it. ?There should be devolution of power within a united country,? he pointed out.

By Nimalraj Pillai (6/21/2007)
It was of significance to the peoples of Sri lanka(SL) and Britain when the ethnic problem was discussed at the seat of democracy, the House of Commons, during the spring of this year. Britain rightly realised it`s responsibility to it`s former colony.

using as wind to the sails of concern expressed in the House of Commons, the High Commisiioner of Britain in Colombo, made a clear policy statement on Monday, as to how Britain would like to help SL solve the ethnic problem and make us attain standards of Human Rights acceptable to the International Community. About a few months ago, the High Commissioner of Britain expressed his regrets about the failure of the constitution of Ceylon drafted by Lord Soulbury in 1948.

Police stood by and did not make an attempt to interfere when the two slain Sri Lanka Red Cross volunteers were abducted from the Fort railway station on June 1, the latest reports filed by the SLMM said.

`The incident (abduction) happened in the presence of many policemen, who did not interfere. On June 2nd, the following morning, the dead bodies of the Red Cross workers were found in Kirielle in Ratnapura area,` the SLMM situation report said.

`Our boat was packed with people and it almost overturned during our perilous voyage,` recounts Reshmi, a 22-year-old teacher from Sri Lanka.

She was among those who had just landed on Indian shores seeking refuge from the conflict in Sri Lanka between the military and Tamil Tiger rebels.

The distance was short but the sea was rough. They had to hide from patrolling naval ships in the Palk Straits which separate northern Sri Lanka from the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu.

An ethnic Tamil student wheels her bicycle past a Special Task Force soldier inspecting identification cards in Batticaloa, May 28, 2007. Suspected Tamil Tiger rebels attacked a police commando truck with a roadside bomb on Monday near the capital Colombo, wounding 20 civilians and four troops, the military said. REUTERS/Buddhika Weerasinghe (SRI LANKA)