Germany-based LTTE fund raiser arrested

Police on Wednesday arrested a key supporter of the now defunct LTTE, on her arrival in Colombo.

Well informed sources said that she had been instrumental in collecting funds in Frankfurt for the terrorist organisation and played a key role in the anti-Sri Lanka demonstrations held in the German Commercial Capital during the final stages of the 'humanitarian operation' launched by the security forces. "She was a key member of the pro -LTTE group who sat across railway lines and blocked the movement of trains in Frankfurt demanding the Sri Lanka government to halt the operation against the LTTE," sources said.

The woman, who had lived in Germany for a considerable period, was also one of the main organisers of the anti-Sri Lanka demonstration held opposite the Indian Consul General's office in Frankfurt, sources said.

The suspect is a native of Chilaw and is around 50 years of age.

Some of her close relatives too had been involved in the demonstrations against Sri Lanka and had raised funds for the LTTE inse relatives too had been involved in the demonstrations against Sri Lanka and had raised funds for the LTTE in Frankfurt, the sources said.

Her family owns the GS Traders in Frankfurt and her son-in-law who is also an LTTE supporter is looking after the business, the source said.

She is being interrogated by the CID, sources said.

Courtesy : The Island

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Sri Lanka shuts camp for rebel child soldiers

May 25 (AFP) Sri Lanka on Tuesday closed a camp holding former Tamil Tiger child soldiers, but 52 of the youths will stay in government care to complete their education, an official said. More than 500 child soldiers were picked up after security forces defeated Tamil Tiger rebels in a bloody final battle a year ago. Most have since been reunited with their families, leaving 198 boys and girls when more..

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War-affected women bewail their plight

May 26 (IPS) Although unmarried, Rajini Padamaraj, 32, is burdened with the responsibility of looking after the needs of her entire household, composed of her mother and two younger siblings. The slightly built woman who is of Tamil ethnic origin and originally from the Jaffna peninsula in northern Sri Lanka, found a job last October as a sewing instructor in a training centre for women funded by more..

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War heroes week divides Sri Lanka

May 26 (AN) Postponed due to recent floods, the “War heroes week” (Ranaviru Sathiya), planned by the government to celebrate the defeat on the Tamil Tigers (LTTE), which occurred May 19, 2009. The population is divided between those who considered the defeat of the rebels as a day of glory and happiness, or as a sad event, which cost thousands of lives and displaced more than 300 thousand and many see the bad weather as a sign from God. more..

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A year after defeating terrorism, Sri Lanka embodies hope and change

May 26 (HP) Today is my first visit to Washington since my appointment as Sri Lanka's Minister for External Affairs. My visit marks a point of progress for Sri Lanka, following a difficult period in our history, one year on from the end of the Sri Lankan conflict. After 26 years of conflict and daily acts of terror, we have witnessed our first year of peace. After 26 years of conflict and daily acts of terror. more..

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LTTE pose threat to Indian VVIPs: India

May 26 (HT) The LTTE might be militarily decimated in Sri Lanka but big neighbour India is not taking any chance. It recently extended the ban against LTTE as an "unlawful association" capable even now of jeopardising "VVIP security" and compromising India’s "territorial integrity." The notification’s mention of LTTE’s goal of creating a "Tamil homeland" is interesting. more..

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சரத்பொன்சேகா அவுஸ்திரேலியாவில் தற்காலிக அரசியல் தஞ்சம்????

Australian asylum bid for Colombo general Sarath Fonseka

FORMER Sri Lankan army chief Sarath Fonseka has said he will consider seeking temporary asylum in Australia following his election defeat this week in presidential polls he claims were rigged by the government.
In an interview with The Australian at his home in Colombo yesterday, the former Sri Lankan army chief turned presidential challenger said he had spoken to the US and British embassies in Sri Lanka and was also planning to speak to the Australian high commissioner about the possibility of temporary asylum.


But the man credited with winning the war against the rebel Tamil Tigers last May - along with his former commander-in-chief, President Mahinda Rajapakse, revealed he was being prevented from leaving the country.


In the wake of Tuesday's polls - in which Mr Rajapakse won a second six-year presidential term this week by a large, and largely unexpected, margin of 1.8 million votes - he accused the government of rigging the election and abusing state resources.


He has also accused it of orchestrating his assassination by withdrawing his security detail, and hinted he would seek temporary political asylum in another country.


When asked whether he had considered Australia as an option, he replied: "It's a good place to go. I have not spoken to the Australian embassy yet; they may give me a visa but (the government) won't allow me to leave."


He also confirmed he had spoken to staff at the US and British embassies in Sri Lanka. "There's no charge, no case filed against me (but) they said I can't leave the country..


"In this country, the President interferes with the judiciary, interferes with law and order."


General Fonseka looked relaxed despite the drama of the previous day in which he accused the military of putting him under house arrest in an upscale Colombo hotel.


He said he intended to contest Sri Lanka's parliamentary elections in April - potentially as leader of a new political party - in what could be tacit acceptance that his bid to have this week's elections annulled has little chance of success.


Many analysts yesterday predicted the size of the President's victory would prove decisive in upcoming parliamentary elections and cement his hold on power. But General Fonseka told The Australian: "There's been computer manipulation from the accounting centre to the electoral commission.


"We have a lot of evidence so we're going to file a Supreme Court case; after that we will try to get the results declared null and void and go for a recount."


Yesterday, a victorious Mr Rajapakse vowed to put tensions with Western critics behind him and transform his war-ravaged nation into a development and tourism hub after his landslide win in Sri Lanka's first post-conflict presidential election.


But he warned Western nations against pushing for an international inquiry into alleged war crimes committed by both sides in the last months of the civil war with the separatist Tamil Tigers. "The overwhelming mandate given in this election has given the answer to these critics," he said in a statement yesterday.


The Australian

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Circumstances of Pirapakaran’s death questioned.

"A public trial in large and a hearing attended by local and international media would have kept alive the spirits of the Sinhala nationalism in an amazing scale. Knowing the mindset of the government this is what it would have wanted to achieve like what is being done to LTTE’s KP in a small way."


LTTE leader Pirabakaran’s death was a gimmicky driven prop up to increase the support base of President Mahinda Rajapakse to hold on to power to cover up his failures in good governance during his four year term in office.

The rudimentary way in which Pirabakaran’s body was paraded and the degrading methods adopted to reflect the gruesome injuries to his head and displaying his semi naked body are state managed drama to cultivate a precedence of another war victory against the Tamils of a yesteryears sense to be recorded in the history of Sri Lanka.

To achieve an outright victory claim, the government did everything to cover up and avoid due process of dealing with Pirabakaran’s death. The government feels it has succeeded in giving its message that has not been contested by the questioning mindsets within or outside Sri Lanka. The government’s dictatorial conduct towards the questioning media and the outspoken civil society bolstered its calculated agenda to mislead and fabricate the facts and to stamp its version of events as the only factual account surrounding the death of Pirabakaran.

Any one saying anything outside government’s version of the story or reveal some hard facts about Pirabakaran’s death are threatened of dire consequence. The government’s threatening conduct in its mission to uphold its only version of events has so far stood grounds. When there were no questions asked or debated about the circumstances of Pirabakaran’s death, the government’s story becomes the Sinhala story of how the President Mahinda Rajapakese (the Raja) has defeated the Tamil uprising in a brutal way like the historical Dutugemunu-Elharan war in which Tamil King Elharan was slain by Dutugemunu.

The children of Sri Lanka when they learn the modern Sri Lankan history, the Education Department approved version of events will be that Pirabakaran was slaughtered with the butcher’s knife in the war and there are ample photographs to display the brutality inflicted and the rudimentary treatment to his dead body.

There were various stories from the government side relating to Pirabakarans death. One official said he was shot and killed by a specialist army unit. It was even reported that Pirabakaran was captured and taken to Colombo and then executed. One even said that Pirabakaran put his hands up and surrendered to the army. Another story said when Pirabakaran refused to apologise for his conduct to a senior army official, he was axed to death by the said officer. All what was fed to the Sinhala masses were tantalising stories for them to rejoice over Pirabakaran’s death.

Let us consider some of the circumstantial evidences that were left behind in the trail of stage managed events that the government has put across to the people to digest.

Pirabakaran’s dead body displayed by the state confirms not a single bullet injury to his body.

Then the story of capturing and slaughtering him with a crude weapon has been cleverly framed to extend the government’s Machiavellian agenda. What is very intriguing is why the Defence Secretary Gotabaya Rajapakse allowed him to be murdered in captivity without producing him before the Court of Law to justify his violent conduct for over thirty years. If Pirabakaran was taken into captivity the euphoria in the south would have been ongoing. If he was held behind the bars and time to time his plight and appearance before the judges were shown in the state television, it would have kept the momentum high in the South for Mahinda for many years until the death sentence is executed after a judicial decision.

A public trial in large and a hearing attended by local and international media would have kept alive the spirits of the Sinhala nationalism in an amazing scale. Knowing the mindset of the government this is what it would have wanted to achieve like what is being done to LTTE’s KP in a small way.

The stories emerging so far confirm the circumstances under which Pirabakaran died was not helpful for the government to claim that they ‘got him alive’. The government could not claim maximum mileage from his death unless a sham and rudimentary show of brutality inflicted on his body is propagated to prop up the nationalist feeling in the South.

It purposely thwarted any effort to undertake a post-mortem examination on Pirabakaran’s dead body. If it had undertaken a post-mortem examination, factual account of his death would have been established. The circumstantial evidence available could have been corroborated to the real story behind his death.

There is beyond doubt from the reasons established that Pirabakaran did commit suicide to avoid being slaughtered by the enemy. Committing suicide when death is imminent is the motto of the LTTE movement he created and nurtured for such a long time. If a proper post-mortem examination had been undertaken all traces of suicide evidence would have been revealed.

A proper post-mortem would have identified when the brutal attack on his head after his death. If it was post event of his suicide, the medical evidence would have authoritatively proved this. Even the government’s claim of him being shot and killed would have been revealed in the post-mortem report as the bullets lodged in his body would have analysed.

Soon after Pirabakaran’s death, I spoke to one of his former bodyguards. He told me the instructions given to him by his leader Pirabakaran how to handle an ultimate life threatening situation for him. The instructions were very clear that he will pull the trigger from his pistol on to his head and the bodyguards must ensure to burn his body immediately using the flammable liquid stored in the vicinity. In an extreme difficult situation, the bodyguards must at least burn his face and prevent his facial identity. The circumstances confronted by Pirabkaran was possibly that his bodyguards were either killed before his death or they were not near enough or were unable to execute their orders when he pulled the trigger.

This appears to be a plausible cause of his death. Those who were very close to Pirabakaran are very assertive that he would not have died like a coward by either surrendering or without putting up a fight. He was a hardened man who devised suicide as the mission in his war strategy.

If a post-mortem was conducted, it would have identified the bullet lodged in the head of Pirabakaran and this would not have been helpful to the government. The gruesome injury on his head must have been a post event to hide the suicide gun shot injury. In order to score points the government has to stage manage and demonise the death of Pirabakaran to sensationalise the Southern Sinhala feelings.

The true story that Pirabakaran committed suicide would have hyphened the feelings of LTTE supporters. With all the truth being circumvented in a calculated manner, they are still waiting to hear the true circumstances of Pirabakaran’s death.

The government became pathetically desperate in handling the death of Pirabakaran that it decided to burn and dispose the body in a secret way without holding it in a mortuary until such time proper procedures were followed to certificate his death. It finally issued the death certificate to India under pressure after dragging on for some months. Issuing a death certificate without following the due process, when death was under tragic circumstances is a questionable conduct of the government. The death certificate too was not publicised and if it is published it will further embarrass the government. The cause/s of death must be reflected in the death certificate and why such important document is held in the tight grip of the Secret Service of Sri Lanka confirms sinister intent.

A section of the LTTE claimed that Pirabakaran was not killed and the body displayed was a dummy look of their leader. The government did nothing to counter this claim. An expert DNA test could have produced substantive evidence either to confirm or reject the body was Pirabakaran’s. DNA test could have been corroborated with his children killed by the army.

Why did the government handle the important closure procedures in an irregular manner? The only intention of the government had is to score political mileage on Pirabakaran’s death. Unfortunately, such irregular and rudimentary behaviour has not helped the President in his elections campaigns and he is unable to elongate the death of Pirabakaran as expected for his advantage.

Why did the government fail to follow the due process by holding Pirabakran for a full scale trial? Why post-mortem or independent DNA tests not undertaken and also why his body was not retained in the mortuary to facilitate a thorough process later? All these questions stack up against the government. The body of such an important criminal in the eyes of government was secretly reduced to ashes without a burial. Why did this happen? If Pirabakaran’s body was buried, the truth could have been analysed scientifically even at a later date. This is what the government wanted to avoid at any cost.

By Rajasingham Jayadevan

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Prabhakaran’s gun, body armour found

Sri Lanka on Tuesday claimed to have found the personal gun and body armour of the slain Tamil Tiger chief Vellupilai Prabhakaran, seven months after overrunning the last LTTE bastion in the decisive battle at Nanthaikadal lagoon off the northern coast.




The arms used by Prabhakaran were found buried 15 feet under the ground at Vellamulliwaikkal area in Mulaittivu along with 125 suicide kits 50 mortar bombs, 25 anti-aircraft guns. Senior DIG for Vavuniya Nimal Lewke confirmed that the weapon, a M-16A2 with a grenade launcher, that was found was used by the LTTE leader as his personal weapon, local media reports said on Tuesday.


Prabhakaran was killed by Lankan Army at Nanthikadal lagoon in Mullaitivu on May 18 last year.


Security authorities continue to scour the northern countryside for weapons cache of the LTTE.


PTI

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தமிழ் தேசிய கூட்டணியினர் சரத்பொன்சேகாவிற்கு ஆதரவு அளிக்க முடிவு எடுத்துள்ளனர்

S.Lanka's main Tamil party backs ex-general

COLOMBO (AFP) – Sri Lanka's main minority Tamil party on Monday backed the main opposition presidential candidate, Sarath Fonseka, who as army chief led the offensive that crushed Tamil rebels last year, officials said.


Fonseka, a former four-star general who quit in November following differences with his political boss President Mahinda Rajapakse, pledged in a letter to end a state of emergency if he was elected in the January 26 vote.


The moderate Tamil National Alliance (TNA) agreed to back Fonseka's campaign after he signed a three-page programme that he hopes to implement in the island's former war zone, a party official said.


"We have decided to support General Fonseka, but a formal announcement will be made on Tuesday," said the TNA official, who declined to be named. The TNA has 21 seats in Sri Lanka's 225-member parliament.


In his letter, a copy of which was seen by AFP on Monday, Fonseka promised to free Tamil detainees within a month if no charges had been brought against them.


The former military chief, who is credited with leading the military drive against the separatist Tamil Tigers, also promised to establish a completely civilian administration.


"Full restoration of all institutions of civil administration from the office of village headman upwards will be free from military, police and political interference," the letter to the TNA said.


The TNA was at one time seen as a proxy of the Tamil Tigers who were crushed in May with the elimination of the rebels' military leadership after 37 years of fighting.


Fonseka pledged to end the state of emergency which had been in force since March 1983, largely to deal with Tamil rebels as well as militants among the majority Sinhalese.


The emergency gives sweeping powers to security forces to arrest and detain suspects for long periods without trial. France has led international calls on Sri Lanka to end the emergency after the ethnic conflict ended in May.


Rajapakse called the January poll in a bid to capitalise on the victory over the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) who launched their campaign for a Tamil homeland in 1972.


Fonseka and Rajapakse have been at loggerheads since the end of the conflict. Fonseka quit after accusing the government of sidelining him and falsely suspecting him of trying to stage a coup.

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விடுதலை புலிகளின் பாரிய ஆயுதக் கப்பல் கைப்பற்றப்பட்டு கொழும்பிற்கு கொண்டுவரப்பட்டது

புலிகளுக்கு சொந்தமான பிறின்ஸஸ் கிரிஸ்டீனா (MV 'Princess Christina') கப்பல் கைப்பற்றப்பட்டு இன்றுகாலை கொழும்புக்கு கொண்டு வரப்பட்டுள்ளதாக இலங்கை கடற்படையினர் தெரிவித்துள்ளனர்.

Sri Lanka seizes Tiger rebel ship

AFP

COLOMBO (AFP) - Sri Lanka's military said Monday it had seized a cargo ship suspected of being an arms smuggling vessel used by the defeated Tamil Tiger rebels at an undisclosed foreign port.


Navy spokesman Captain Athula Senarath said the 90-metre (300-feet) long Princess Christina had been captured at a foreign port but refused to reveal the location or identify the country.


"We can't say from where we seized the ship, but we deployed our own crew and brought it to Sri Lankan territorial waters," he said.


Sri Lanka's navy last year claimed it had destroyed a fleet of 10 gun-running ships operated by the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) which was finally defeated in May after a 37-year conflict.


The group's new international representative, Selvarasa Pathmanathan, was taken into custody in August, three months after security forces claimed victory over the rebels.


Pathmanathan, better known as KP, the chief arms smuggler for the Tigers, is in military custody in Sri Lanka after he was arrested in Southeast Asia in August, but has yet to be brought before courts.


The government believes the LTTE sourced most of its weapons from Southeast Asia, including Cambodia and Indonesia, as well as former Soviet republics such as Ukraine.




The UN estimates that up to 100,000 people were killed in Sri Lanka's civil war since the Tamil Tigers took up arms in 1972.

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Sri Lankan maid charged with murder in Singapore

Singapore - A Singapore court on Thursday charged a Sri Lankan maid with the murder of an Indian worker, media reports said.


Tharmalingan Puwaneswary, 31, was arrested Wednesday on suspicion of killing Murugaiyan Selvam, 32, an assembly worker.


The Indian national had been found on his bed with fatal head injuries on December 4, according to police.


Further court proceedings in the maid's case were scheduled for December 24, the online edition of the Straits Times newspaper reported.


If convicted of murder, the Sri Lankan would face a mandatory death penalty.

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I did not say , Gotabaya gave orders to kill the LTTE members who came to surrender- Fonseka

(Lanka-e-News 13.Dec.2009 8.30PM) Gen. Sarath Fonseka the common Presidential candidate said today (13) when addressing a Press briefing at the JAIC Hilton Hotel, that he did not state that Defense Secretary Gotabaya Rajapakse gave orders to kill those who LTTE ers who came to surrender during the last phase of the war.


The General told this when answering a question raised by a media personnel with reference to a news item appearing in today’s Sunday Leader newspaper.


He told he has been misquoted in the news. The question asked from me was what action Gotabaya and Basil Rajapakse took when several LTTE leaders were preparing to come forward with white flags to surrender on 17th May 2009 after Basil and Gotabaya were informed of such a move by the LTTE leaders through the Norwegians.?


The answer I gave was, ‘I did not know the story of the LTTE leaders trying to surrender carrying the white flags. I came to know of this later through the media. That was known only between the two of them , as expressed by the media. T he media revealed to me , the Defense Secretary had instructed a high officer in the war operations not to allow anyone to escape whether they came with or without a white flag.




This is a story heard by you from others in the same way as I heard. Due to the security and safety of the media personnel who told me this , I cannot disclose his name. These details were revealed to me by a Media personnel who was on the battlefield on that day. The Defense secretary has instructed the high Army Officer over the phone.’

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The Structure of Tamil Names

My name is Sivapuranam Thevaram, and my origins are in the northern parts of Sri Lanka. I usually identify myself as a Sri Lankan Tamil, strictly in that order. And that order is not negotiable. Equally significant, and not for negotiation, is the order of the two identifiers in my name: Sivapuranam is the one given to my father at his birth, Thevaram is mine. My brothers are Sivapuranam Thiruvasakam and Sivapuranam Thirumanthiram. Again, Thiruvasakam and Thirumanthiram are tokens my dad looked up in the phone book. The full name of my dad is Thirukkural Sivapuranam. So the structure, sliding across generations is: One Two, Two Three, Three Four and so on.

This structure doesn't match the convention of my friend John Smith: Smith is his family name and John, the given name. His brothers are Mark Smith and Peter Smith, dad is Andy Smith and grandfather was Adam Smith (no, not the same chap). Their structure is like a tree: A great grandpa Smith, followed by a hierarchy of junior Smiths.

Nancy, our research group secretary isn't phonetically gifted. "You guys got it all so long", she complains.

Where I come from, Sivapuranam Thevaram is called Mr Thevaram for formal purposes, and should he acquire titles, he becomes Dr Thevaram, Professor Thevaram etc. Informally, people close to him say "Hey Thevaram".

My friend John Smith, who is Dr Smith for formal purposes, is "Hey John", informally. "Hey Smith" and "Dr John", are wrong. Should he gain membership of the second chamber of British governance, he becomes Lord Smith, but should Her Majesty be minded to honor him, he will be Sir John.

In the UK, I maintain the habit from home. People formally address me as "Mr. Thevaram", and informally also call me "Hey Thevaram". It takes a bit of training, but in my ivory tower circles, people learn fast. Vincent, our technician, once said to me: "well, in the lab people may learn to say Thevaram, but if you were in a factory, they will give you a Christian name everyone can pronounce". That explains why several Sri Lankans I know, working in petrol stations, have on their name badges "Mark", "Anthony" etc. Once I have met three guys, working eight-hour shifts, all using the same "Jonathan" name badge. "Who cares, just part of the uniform", they explained, in an amazingly detached view of life.

My brother Sivapuranam Thiruvasakam took a different approach. He has declared Thiruvasakam as his family name and a truncated version of my dad's name as his first name. His work colleagues have learnt to call him Siva, informally, and Dr Thiruvasakam, in a formal setting. It gets odd when he is in the company of a mixture of Sri Lankans and Europeans at parties: Europeans calling him "Hey Seeeva" and the Sri Lankans calling him "Hey Thiruvasakam".

I myself have abandoned the convention for the next generation, naming my kids One Thevaram, Two Thevaram and Three Thevaram, using Thevaram as family name and One, Two and Three as first names. In a few hundred years, you will find a whole family-tree of Thevarams, with me at the root.

Despite going into extensive searches, and sometimes numerical calculations, to find these names and sticking to their structures, we are reluctant to use them. We use a lot of uncle, aunty, annai, nangi, master and sir as substitutes for names -- the supposedly polite way. My mom would never call my dad: "Hey Sivapuranam", saying "Appa"-- meaning father -- instead. That has changed a bit in my generation. My wife addresses me as "injErungo Appa", "Hey Thevaram" or "chaniyan" with roughly equal probability and in decreasing order of expressed affection.

Thinking about all this started from a conversation with a retired Jaffna High Court judge, whose name I forget, and the former principal of St John's College, Anantharajan (see, just one name), at the Jaffna YMCA, in 1976/77. Having won the village chess tournament, I got to chat to these eminent gentlemen after the prize giving. The judge narrated a story of a woman witness, asked to identify her husband:

"Who is your husband?"

"It is him"

"What is his name?"

"It is him";

"Just tell us what his name is"

"It is him, you know him";

"For the last time, I will jail you for contempt of court if you don't tell us his name"

"It is him, my daughter's dad, you educated people -- you already know him".

It was sweet of Anantharajan to include this schoolboy in their conversation, and to let him laugh with them. If you will permit me a distraction just to complete the story, this man Anantharajan was shot about nine years after that conversation at the YMCA. It wasn't clear to me how killing this wonderful school principal was going to help Tamils achieve greater political space in Sri Lanka. Is it to you?

So I asked!

I was visiting an aunt's place in London when a coupe of chaps turned up to collect money for their war effort back home. She gave them 25 pounds and they were about to leave with the contribution, when I casually dropped my question:

"Are you taking this money to kill more of the likes of Anantharajan?"

Faces turned red. Tempers raised high.

"Are you calling us murderers?"

"Your words, not mine"

"You don't know much do you, about his CIA connections?"

"What makes you think Anantharajan was an agent of the CIA?"

"You don't know, I say, it is this type of people through whom the CIA operates".

My aunt was as shocked at this logic as I was, but kept her cool and said something to ease the tension and make them leave. Later, I ask her to explain why she was funding them. "I gave the [bleep]s 25 pounds", she said, "Otherwise they will come back and harass me, or even threaten me; no big deal 25 pounds for me, look at my grocery bill". It was 120 pounds.

(Some will say why bring up this story so many years since it happened. Perhaps it is all water under the bridge. Or perhaps how we face up to this might be the determinant of the future we build for the next generation of Sri Lankans. I do not know, and I leave it as an exercise to you readers.)

Let's get back to the name structure. Though Thevaram wasn't phonetically difficult, Nancy, even after much practice, continued to complain it was too long. Vincent continued to wish he could call me Bertram instead.

Being the only Sri Lankan member of the group, I survived a couple of years with Thevaram double acting as my first and last names, claiming it to be the Sri Lankan way and an aspect of my cultural heritage I shall stubbornly stick to. But it wasn't to last long.

On the first day of term, Nancy comes running into our lab. She is almost breathless and looks terrified. "Guess what", she exclaims, "We have another one from your country". She takes a deep breath. "Oh my God, his is even much longer!"

Polgahawela Aarachchilage Junius Solomon Rathmana Thanthiriya Bandarawela has joined our laboratory.

"Its OK, we can just call him Pol", I comfort Nancy.

Groundviews

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பிரபாகரன், பொட்டம்மான் இறந்துவிட்டார்கள், ராஜிவ்காந்தியின் வழக்கு மூடப்ப்டுகிறது

Prabhakaran, Amman dead; Rajiv case may be closed

Decks have been cleared for the closure of Rajiv Gandhi assassination case with Sri Lankan government confirming the deaths of two most important conspirators in the case, LTTE chief V. Prabhakaran and its intelligence chief Pottu Amman, formally to India.


New Delhi had asked for the death certificates of the two, immediately after the Lankan army operations against LTTE were over and the demand was taken up with Colombo by a high level delegation of National Security Advisor M K Narayanan and then Foreign Secretary Shiv Shankar Menon in May this year.


“A formal determination” of the deaths was done by the Sri Lankan authorities and the same was conveyed to India formally, said a diplomatic source. Now this can bring to Rajiv Gandhi assassination case a sort of closure, he said.


Long before the LTTE was militarily wiped out, India has been demanding the handing over of Prabhakran and Pottu Amman in connection with the assassination of the fomer Prime Minister in May 1991-- from 1995.


“When we raised the issue when Prabhakran was on the run, a senior Lankan officials told us that we would hang him first, then comes the handing over issue”, recalled an official.


The two main conspirators of the case are now “deceased’ and the official confirmation can be passed on to the TADA court in Poonamallee in Tami Nadu that can help the closure of the case, a source said.


The sentencing of 26 convicted persons in the Supreme Court confirmed death for only four,Nalini, Murugan, Santhan and Perarivalan, while awarding life term for three others.

Jayanth Jacob, Hindustan Times

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"தம்பிமாரே படகை விட்டு இறங்குங்கோடா" தலைவருடைய தாயார் வேண்டுகோள்

இந்தோனேஷியாவின் மெராக் துறைமுகத்தில் நிறுத்தப்பட்டிருக்கும் படகில் தங்கியுள்ள தனது மகனையும் மற்றும் அவருடன் உள்ள 246 இலங்கை அகதிகளையும் போராட்டத்தைக் கைவிட்டு இந்தோனேஷியாவில் தரையிறங்குமாறு இக்குழுவிற்கு தலைமைதாங்கும் அலெக்ஸ் என்ற சஞ்சித் குகேந்திரராஜாவின் தாயார் சத்தியா ராஜரட்ணம், வயது 46, வேண்டுகோள் விடுத்துள்ளார்.

Mom urges Tamils in Indonesia to abandon boat

The Canadian mother of a Sri Lankan asylum seeker has urged her son and his 246 fellow Tamil shipmates to abandon hopes of reaching Australia and to disembark in Indonesia from the moored freighter where they have languished for almost two months.


The Tamils' bid to reach Australia by sea was thwarted in October when Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd telephoned Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and asked him to stop them. They would have been one of the largest groups of asylum seekers to reach Australian waters, heaping political pressure on Rudd's government to stem a growing flow of refugees.


Most of the Tamils have capitalized on their public profile by refusing to leave their wooden ship at the port of Merak, 75 miles (120 kilometers) west of Jakarta, unless Australia accepts them. Australia denies any responsibility.

Sathia Rajaratnam, a 46-year-old electronics businesswoman from Vancouver, said Thursday that she came to Indonesia just over a week ago in the hope of ending the stalemate.


After failing to broker a deal for her son, 27-year-old Sanjeev "Alex" Kuhendrarajah, in meetings with Indonesian officials, the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees and the Canadian Embassy, Rajaratnam said she urged him to leave the boat unconditionally.

"I'm very sad and very upset, but there's nothing we can do," Rajaratnam told The Associated Press by phone from Merak.


"If someone guaranteed them that they are allowed to access communication tools and live in a decent place, then they will consider that, but no one will" give such guarantees, she added.


Her son, who was raised in Canada but was deported in 2003 after serving a prison sentence, said the asylum seekers would reject any deal offered by the Indonesians to leave the boat.


"The Indonesian government is not trustworthy," Kuhendrarajah told AP by phone.


Merak immigration official Harry Purwanto said the local detention center was full, but the government would confine them in rented accommodations if they left the boat.


"We won't force them to leave," Purwanto said.

Rod McGuirk , Associated Press , Jakarta

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"பணம் கொடுக்க மறுத்ததால் எனது தந்தையை விடுதலைப்புலிகள் கொலைசெய்தனர்" அமெரிக்க நீதிமன்றில் தமிழர் வாக்குமூலம்

Convicted Tamil says LTTE murderedfather

Arrested In 2006; Toronto man procured weapons for Tigers: U. S.

Stewart Bell, National Post


A Toronto man who will be sentenced in the United States next month for procuring weapons for the Tamil Tigers rebels described in court documents how those same rebels murdered his father.


Thiruthanikan Thanigasalam, 43, said in a sentencing memorandum in U.S. District Court that he fled to Canada after the Tamil Tigers took away his father and shot him eight times for refusing to give them money.


Mr. Thanigasalam did not explain why, while living in Canada years later, he would take part in an illicit conspiracy to buy black market weapons for the very rebel group that had killed his father.


But the memorandum portrays Mr. Thanigasalam as a man traumatized by Sri Lanka's brutal civil war, who spent his youth in temporary camps and was detained, beaten and tortured by both sides in the conflict.


The married father of two is asking the court for no more than the 25-year minimum sentence, as is Sahilal Sabaratnam, another Canadian convicted on the same charges. Prosecutors are seeking sentences of up to life in prison.


The men are among six Canadians arrested by the FBI and RCMP in 2006 after they allegedly tried to buy 500 AK-47 assault rifles and ten SA-18 heat-seeking surface-to-air missiles for the Tamil Tigers, separatist guerrillas who were then fighting for independence from Sri Lanka.


The rebels, also known as the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, or LTTE, were wiped out by government forces in May. Last week, a Tamil nationalist was arrested in Toronto after giving a fiery speech in which he called for the resumption of the war. A Toronto Buddhist temple used by Sri Lankans was torched the next night.


U.S. officials have depicted Mr. Thanigasalam as the technical expert of the group, and allege he had sought missiles that could shoot down the Kfir fighter jets used by the Sri Lankan military.


Mr. Sabaratnam, 30, immigrated to Canada at age nine, studied commerce at Carleton University and later worked at TD Waterhouse in Toronto. He was allegedly in charge of paying for the weapons.


But his lawyer argued that Mr. Sabaratnam was a "last minute participant" in the conspiracy, and had only become involved at the request of his brother-in-law.


"Without a doubt, Sahil made the worst decision of his life and, in turn, has forfeited his liberty, future, hopes and dreams and extinguished hopes and dreams of his parents, family members and fiancee," Bobbi Sternheim wrote.


The pair is to be sentenced on Jan. 12. Another Canadian, Sathajhan Sarachandran, the former president of the Canadian Tamil Students Association, is to be sentenced Jan. 11. All three pleaded guilty. Three more Canadians are awaiting extradition to the U.S.


Asked why Mr. Thanigasalam would support the rebels after they killed his father, his lawyer Lee Ginsberg said, "I can't explain it. I'm not sure my client can explain it.


"If you want my view for what it's worth, it wouldn't surprise me if there are many Tamils who were upset with the way the LTTE was operating in Sri Lanka and had family members displaced because of them.


"On the other hand there are sympathies with the general proposition that the Tamil people were being repressed and other things, and I think it falls somewhere in that category."


sbell@nationalpost.com

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Sri Lankan maid and her Indian lover caught conducting immoral activities

KUWAIT CITY: A Sri Lankan maid and her Indian lover were arrested for conducting immoral activities in her sponsor’s house in Firdous on Sunday.
The maid’s sponsor — a Kuwaiti citizen in his forties - discovered the two in a compromising position after he entered the house and heard sounds from her room. He immediately called up Operation Room, who sent security officials to the scene. They apprehended the guilty persons and referred them to the authorities. A case was registered.

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LTTE cadres fleeing Sri Lanka via India

New Delhi: The decimation of the LTTE in Sri Lanka has given a big push to illegal immigration involving Sri Lankan Tamils in India. There is a sudden spurt in Sri Lankan Tamils illegally crossing over to India to take a flight abroad. Agents have kept apace by doubling fees for passports and visa.

Investigators believe most Sri Lankans trying to cross-over to western shores via India are LTTE cadres or sympathizers. Airport authorities have caught at least 40 Sri Lankan Tamils trying to take such flights from Indian airports.

In a latest case at the Indira Gandhi International (IGI) airport on November 16, Rajan Kumar was stopped from boarding an Air India flight to New York, after the US visa on his passport drew suspicion. The regional passport office in Hyderabad had purportedly issued the passport.

But close scrutiny showed the passport was fake. It would have gone down as another case of illegal immigration had Rajan not told investigators he was a Sri Lankan Tamil who had illegally crossed over to India.

His original name was Sivapalan and apart for his Indian passport, he was also carrying documents to prove his Sri Lankan identity. Sivapalan explained he planned to show his original Sri Lankan documents on reaching America. "He would have claimed to be an LTTE sympathizer and a victim of persecution by Sri Lankan forces," said a source who interrogated Sivapalan. But authorities are undecided on whether Sivapalan was really an LTTE recruit or just trying to get a toe-hold in the US.

Sivapalan had got his boarding pass before he was detained, indicating some kind of connivance with airline staff. It is also clear that Sivapalan got his Indian passport from a gang that catered to Sri Lankan Tamils.

The gang has links to an illegal immigration racket busted in Chennai. On October 22, the Chennai police arrested two agents -- Mahenthiran Kajenthiran and Vellaiyan Tharamalingan -- from Vetri Nagar and recovered 27 Indian passports of Sri Lankan Tamils from their houses. Seven Sri Lankan passports and some visa stamps of UK and other western countries too were found.

The passports were meant for Sri Lankan Tamils but the racket was busted before they could be handed over to clients. What startled the authorities was recovery of LTTE propaganda, indicating the gang was helping Sri Lankan Tamils flee India.

During interrogation, the agents gave details of a well-oiled operation in which LTTE cadres or sympathizers are sent abroad. The gang was led by a person named Kalidass, arrested later.

Kalidass used to take people to exotic European locales posing as film crew. But the crew never returned.Authorities are still clueless on the whereabouts of such Sri Lankan Tamils whose passports the gang prepared. So far, only their names are known.

Rajesh Ahuja / DNA

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Fourteen political parties in Sri Lanka support General Fonseka, opposition says

Fourteen political parties in the opposition alliance United National Front (UNF) have pledged to work for the retired defence chief General Sarath Fonseka at the forthcoming presidential election, the General Secretary of the United National Party (UNP) Tissa Attanayake said at a media briefing convened by the UNF in Colombo yesterday.


Attanayake said the general assembly of the United National Front convened Friday morning (27) unanimously decided to field General Sarath Fonseka as the Common Candidate.


"We look forward to present a bill to abolish the executive Presidency within a month's time after the victory of Sarath Fonseka. We also expect to pass it within 180 days. If necessary we will also go for a public referendum to abolish the executive Presidency."


The leader of Sri Lanka Freedom Party Mahajana Wing (SLFP-M), MP Mangala Samaraweera speaking at the assembly said the myth that the Marxist party Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) and the UNP cannot come to an agreement has been shattered.


"They thought that the UNP and the JVP will never meet at a common front for a common aim. They also thought that the Tamil vote and support of the Tamil political parties could not be obtained if a person like Sarath Fonseka contests. However all those things have been shattered," he said.


Commenting on the Common Candidate, Nissam Kariyappar said, the supreme committee of Sri Lanka Muslim Congress (SLMC) reached a common agreement with regard to the Common Candidate.


"The Supreme Committee also requested that Sarath Fonseka possesses a good understanding about the minority parties as the common candidate. Therefore a need has now arisen for our party members to meet him directly and brief him regarding the matter," Kariyappar said.


The party leader and other supreme committee members of the SLMC will visit the Eastern Province and create awareness on the main aim of fielding Sarath Fonseka as the Common candidate and also state their expectations, he added.


"Accordingly our party leader Rauff Hakeem and other members will visit the East. After that they expect to meet the Common Candidate Sarath Fonseka and brief him," he said.

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