Devolution

NCC president K V Thangkabalu today appealed to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to ensure that those responsible for alleged war crimes in Sri Lanka against Tamil civilians during the last phase of the offensive against the LTTE in Sri Lanka faced action. Calling on the Prime Minister at his residence in Delhi, Thangkabalu referred to […]

R. K. RadhakrishnanSri Lankan voters walk to polling stations as a policeman stands guard in Jaffna on July 23, 2011. The Tamil National Alliance (TNA), the umbrella organisation of Tamil political parties, recorded convincing victories in local body elections in Sri Lanka’s north and east.AP Sri Lankan voters walk to polling stations as a policeman […]

by Dr. Paikiasothy SaravanamuttuThe results of the second phase of the 2011 local government elections reveal a north/ south divide with the ruling UPFA winning comfortably outside of the north and east and the TNA capturing the overwhelming majority of local bodies in those areas.These results need serious analysis by all political parties as an […]

The 65 results disclosed in the mini election reveals a one party domination in the South (UPFA) and the North (ITAK). The call is close only in the constituencies that do not have a Tamil domination where a keen contest was seen between the UPFA and the ITAK. It is not the defeat that should disturb […]

By Kelum BandaraFollowing the local government elections which ensured a victory for the TNA in the North and East, the government will have its next round of talks with the TNA next Monday as part of its plan to evolve a political solution, the party said yesterdayTNA MP Suresh Premachandran told the Daily Mirror that […]

By Sandun A. JayasekeraThe Tamil National Alliance(TNA) which swept the board in Saturday’s local council elections in the North said yesterday it would be impossible to reach a political solution and bring about lasting peace, justice and democracy in the North without the devolution of police and land powers.Jaffna district parliamentarian and TNA spokesman Suresh […]

”The Tamil people’s demand is that they exercise full powers of self-rule within their homeland consisting of a merged North and East. Once again, the Tamil people have declared that they will not relinquish their political aspirations for any amount of giveaways or on account of any level of intimidation by ensuring the victory of […]

By Jehan Perera Defeats suffered by the ruling alliance at the local authority elections in the North would have come as a disappointment to the government, which registered its accustomed victories elsewhere in the country. For the past month a formidable array of government ministers, said to be as many as 40, are reported to have […]

By Charles Haviland/BBC News, KilinochchiThe dirt road leading south-west from Kilinochchi town is pale red, the colour of the soil of the Vanni, the northerly extreme of the Sri Lankan mainland. It is a land that lost all its people. They retreated with the Tamil Tigers as the civil war swept through Kilinochchi more than […]

By Shihar AneezJAFFNA: Sri Lanka’s minority Tamils say President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s post-war development and infrastructure projects in the former war zone in the island’s north have yet to address their real concerns and have not excluded their participation.Sri Lanka’s northern cities held local polls for the first time in many years on Saturday amid opposition […]

Former Sri Lanka President Chandrika Kumaratunga said on Sunday that she still ‘agonizes’ over not using full presidential powers or authoritarian rule to implement the then draft constitution that would have ended dictatorial presidential rule.“I still agonize over this, over and over again as to whether I should have used full presidential powers or authoritarian […]

by Professor S. Ratnajeevan H. Hoole,  UGC Coordinator for Engineering, University of Jaffna The EPDP, supposedly a former armed group which continues to be represented by gun-toting cadres led by Minister Douglas Devananda, is the main Tamil ally of President Rajapakse. The violent EPDP seemed the only way in which the President can show Tamil support […]

Tamil National Alliance (TNA), which won nearly all the local councils in the Northern and Eastern Provinces at the yesterday’s LG election, said that the Tamil people had voted for a dignified political settlement at this election despite intimidations and threats by the ruling UPFA.TNA MP Suresh Premachandran said “we campaigned for a dignified political […]

A controversial advisory panel report, published by the United Nations in late March 2011, called for a full investigation into the perceived breaches in the Laws of Armed Conflict during the endgame of Sri Lanka’s civil war. This has placed India in a difficult position where it must balance its relations with Sri Lanka while […]

By KRISHAN FRANCIS – Associated Press  A former proxy to Sri Lanka’s defeated separatist Tamil Tiger rebels swept local council elections held in areas ravaged by the country’s 25-year civil war, officials said Sunday, amid reports of intimidation and vote-buying.The Tamil National Alliance won 20 local councils out of the 25 it contested in the […]

President Mahinda Rajapaksa has reiterated his long-held view that police powers and land “were not subjects for the Provincial Council.He has told ‘The Hindu’ in an interview that he had seen “what has happened in India, in the recent Mumbai bomb attacks.“How slow it [the police and security response] was, you know, with all the […]

By Subash Somachandran / 21 July 2011Sri Lanka’s ruling United Peoples Freedom Alliance (UPFA) is engaging in violence against opposition candidates and flouting election laws in the local government election campaign in war-torn northern Sri Lanka. President Mahinda Rajapakse is mounting a desperate attempt to capture the local government bodies to counter criticisms of his […]

By Saman IndrajithSaturday’s elections in the North will have an impact on the whole country, UNP and Opposition Leader Ranil Wickremesinghe told Parliament yesterday.Making a special statement, the Opposition Leader said that the future of the will to find solution to the national problem, displayed by the TNA and the Government to a large extent, […]

Bharatiya Janata Party President Nitin Gadkari who met a top delegation of the British Tamils Forum (BTF) last weekend in London, has said that the BJP was very serious on taking up the ‘Sri Lanka issue’ in the Indian Lok-Sabha. BTF leaders V Ravi Kumar and S. Pathmanathan, who led the BTF delegation to the […]

By  Sandun A. Jayasekera in ChavakachcheriPresident Mahinda Rajapaksa said yesterday that the government had no intention of taking advice from Europe or any other power to resolve the country’s problems.Addressing an election rally in Kilinochchci in support of the UPFA candidates contesting the local government elections in Jaffna, he said, “We do not intend to […]

While Tamil National Alliance (TNA) has endeavored to work in the spirit of co-operation with the Sri Lanka Government, the Government has yet to address the Rehabilitation and Resettlement of all displaced Tamil families, continued to unlawfully repossess the land from Tamil people, and has failed to craft a political solution within the framework of […]

”The National Peace Council calls for the Tamil people to be provided with the right and opportunity to elect their representatives through a free and fair election. Any conclusions regarding the state of mind of the Tamil people and their attitude to the government can be judged only if a free and fair election is […]

Asia Report N°209 18 Jul 2011 Two years since the defeat of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), Sri Lanka is further from reconciliation than ever. Triumphalist in its successful “war on terror”, the government of President Mahinda Rajapaksa has refused to acknowledge, let alone address, the Tamil minority’s legitimate grievances against the state. […]

”There are two underlying messages to Sri Lanka in the statement. One is India’s stance that in addressing Tamil grievances, the Sri Lanka government “must move towards a new system of institutional reforms, where the Tamil people will have a feeling that they are equal citizens of Sri Lanka, and they can lead and live […]

”In regard to matters of immediate concern for our people, high security zones,demilitarization, housing, livelihood, all that type of things ,and these deliberate, diabolical actions by some people with influence, they must be stopped. If they are not stopped, we will start civil disobedience campaigns in those areas. I will lead that campaign. I will […]

by D.B.S. JeyarajThe president will spend at least 3 days in Kilinochchi & Jaffna districts this week & invigorate the United Peoples Freedom Alliance campaignPresident wants to uplift “socially” underprivileged sections of Tamil society. They will be given priority in land,housing & job allocations Elections in the North will be held to 16 local authorities […]

Demand  of  autonomy has long history By Paikiasothy Saravavanamuttu There is to be another parliamentary select committee to find a political settlement of the ethnic conflict. The simple question is why, given that there have been many committees, all party ones, the famous Mangala Moonesinghe Committee way back when and the more recent APRC. All labored […]

By M.A. Sumanthiran MPMilitarization· Every activity that takes place in the North and East first requires approval by the Presidential Task Force and the military.· Lists of beneficiaries for projects in the north now have to be sent to the military. Incidents have been reported of the military altering these to include as beneficiaries individuals […]

 R.SAMPANTHAN, 5TH July 2011, MEMBER OF PARLIAMENT, TRINCOMALEEParliamentary Group Leader – Illankai Tamil Arasu Kadchi-I.T.A.K, Tamil National Alliance-T.N.A Hon SpeakerAdjournment Motion, ParliamentI hereby give notice that I shall after question time on the adjournment of Parliament on Thursday the 7th July 2011 move the following motion as a matter of urgent public importance.Whereas Sri Lanka […]

Tamil National Alliance (TNA) leader R. Sampanthan, moving an adjournment motion in Sri Lanka’s parliament Thursday and speaking on it said that his objective was “to develop a just settlement within an undivided Sri Lanka,” adding that this approach has been widely endorsed by the international community, notably India. The co-chairs have clearly stated and […]