Minister sitting tight as 'Aussie' Tamil seeks his family cinema

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/world/minister-sitting-tight-as-aussie-tamil-seeks-his-family-cinema/story-e6frg6so-1226458453805

• AMANDA HODGE, SOUTH ASIA CORRESPONDENT 
• From:The Australian 
• August 27, 2012 

The Sridhar Cinema in Jaffna has been occupied for 16 years by Sri Lanka's Minister for Traditional Industries and Small Enterprise Development. Picture: Parameswaran Navaratnam Source: Supplied

IN its 1970s heyday - before war and poverty made movie theatres a luxury northern Sri Lankans could ill afford - the Sridhar Cinema was Jaffna's "A Number One" film house.

The smart new cinema, with its dress circle and regular Bollywood offerings, was hugely popular in the northern capital, as was its young owner Ratnasabapathy Mahendraraviraj, who built the theatre on family land just 1.5km from the heart of Jaffna town.

But the decline and current predicament of the once-grand Sridhar Cinema - and its now Australian-resident owner - reflects a wider problem plaguing many displaced Tamils as they return to their war-ravaged homes.

For 16 years the cinema has been occupied by one of the region's most feared politicians, pro-government Tamil paramilitary chief and Eelam People's Democratic Party founder Douglas Devananda.

Jaffna Catholics: government is lying about civil war refugees

http://www.asianews.it/news-en/Jaffna-Catholics:-government-is-lying-about-civil-war-refugees-25621.html

by Melani Manel Perera
The Jaffna Diocese Commission for Justice and Peace (Cjpcdj) argues that the reality in northern Sri Lanka (devastated by civil war) differs from official version presented to the international community. Hundreds of thousands of refugees still to be resettled; territory militarised; Buddhism forced on people; worship of other faiths banned; war cemeteries desecrated.


Colombo (AsiaNews) - The reality in which civil war survivors live in northern Sri Lanka is far from the image presented by the government to the international community. This was stated by the Jaffna Diocese' Commission for Justice and Peace (Cjpcdj), in an official statement. In the document, the Cjpcdj explains that the population of the Northern Province undergoes physical and psychological abuse of various kinds, which limit freedom of speech and violate basic human rights. Added to this the inability to be able to obtain justice, a condition that "day after day is exhausting the hopes of the people" to rebuild a just democratic and peaceful community.

Post war crimes should be curbed soon - Gbowee

http://www.nation.lk/edition/news-online/item/9519-post-war-crimes-should-be-curbed-soon-gbowee.html

Domestic violence and incidents of rape are common among countries in post war time, according to 2011 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, Leymah Gbowee.
Gbowee, a Liberian, said her country too faced a similar situation, but stressed the need to curb the menace before it reaches high proportions.

She expressed her views at a press conference held at the Galle Face Hotel last week.
“We faced the same situation in my country, Liberia. People still have militarized minds in a post war period. We had to set up a special court just to resolve rape complaints in Liberia after the war,” Gbowee said

Chencholai in image and words: A personal account

http://www.jdslanka.org/index.php/2012-01-30-09-31-17/reflections/169-chencholai-in-image-and-words-a-personal-account

14 AUGUST 2012

BY R.M.KARTHICK

On August 14, 2006, the Sri Lankan Air Force bombers attacked an orphanage in the northern part of the island, killing dozens of children. 'It's a rebel training facility' said the government spokesman, a claim which was contradicted by the UNICEF as well as the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission. A total of 61 children died in the attack, all of them girls. Six years later, R.M.Karthick revisit and reflect upon his own memories.

I never thought writing would become a passion before that fateful night. In fact, I was averse to writing like most of my classmates in my undergrad course. Surrealist writers have contested that words contain magical powers, that they can provide the reader who listens to the heartbeat of the script a plethora of sounds, images and sensations. I didn't attach much meaning to words then.

And like many who can talk but cannot speak, I was immune to the magic of the word, deaf to the music that it contains, blind to the colours it shows. Yet, it was through words that I heard of sufferings of Tamils in the island of Sri Lanka. Through stories, I had heard of past and present horrors committed on an ethnic group - one to which I belonged to but rarely identified with till then. Words spoken by those who fled the island country in the past projected to me a picture of what life under totalitarianism is.

But no words prepared me for the shock of the image that came along with a mail in my inbox the 14th night of August 2006. 

Amnesty wants U.N. probe into Sri Lanka war crimes

http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/article3751494.ece

[ The Hindu, Aug 10  ]

An impartial investigation led by the United Nations is the only way to render justice to those affected by war crimes in Sri Lanka, Amnesty International Chief Executive in India G. Ananthapadmanabhan has said.

The island nation will soon be in the international eye thanks to the impending Commonwealth Heads of Governments meeting and the U.N. Universal Periodical Review of Human Rights practices in countries, he pointed out. There was no doubt there were gross human rights crimes in Sri Lanka, but they were not one-sided. The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam was also responsible for violations such as recruitment of children into the force, he said.

http://act.amnesty.org.in/

SL military backs plunder of scrap iron, vehicles, in land of genocide

http://www.tamilnet.com/art.html?catid=13&artid=35445

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 07 August 2012]
While the international system bails out genocidal Sri Lanka by indecisiveness on international investigations, the occupying Sinhala military is engaged in erasing all remaining traces as well as in earning money by systematically backing plunder and trade of vehicles and scrap-iron left in the land of genocide. While citing land mines the public and local people are not allowed to return to Mu’l’livaaykkaal and Maaththa’lan, large gangs of Muslim traders brought from the South, and equipped with oxygen cylinder cutting tools, are openly engaged in removing vehicle parts and scrap iron. The SL military and some high officials earn huge amount of money in the lucrative trade. Meanwhile, 21 local families of Mu’l’livaaykkaal, who were recently allowed to come back in a showcase resettlement, languish without even drinking water and they are treated like slaves by the occupying military.