News in Brief

15 abducted from transit camp

Fifteen Internally Displaced Tamil men were abducted by a group of unidentified persons clad in army uniform from the transit camp located in the complex of Eachchilampathu Sri Shenpaga Maha Vidiyalayam in Seruvila division in Trincomalee district. The abducted IDPs are married men between 25-45, according to complaints filed with the police and the civil authority by abductees relatives. A group of one hundred IDPs held in Vavuniyaa internment camp were brought to Eachchilampathu Sri Shempaga Maha Vidiyalayam transit camp. The IDPs, all former residents of villages in Moothoor east and released from Vavuniya camps, were housed temporarily in Sri Shenpaga Maha Vidiyalayam to be resettled in their villages after screening by security forces to find out whether they were involved in terrorist activity. The abductions occurred while the refugees were awaiting resettlement. (TamilNet)

54 PTA, ER arrestees remanded

Colombo Chief Magistrate Nishantha Hapuarachchi ordered remand till November 12 for forty-five suspects, majority of them Tamils, arrested by the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) under the Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA) and Emergency Regulations (ER) for allegedly being involved in terrorist activities in the hill country in the central province. They were produced in court after being interrogated by the CID held under the detention order of the Defence Ministry. Some of the suspects are Muslims and Sinhalese. CID officers told court that they arrested the suspects on receipt of information that they had under gone training under Liberation Tigers in Mullaiththeevu and had been told to work for them. The suspects had even provided shelter and other facilities in the hill country to Liberation Tigers, they said. CID said they had recorded confessions made by the suspects detailing their involvement in terrorist activities and moved court to remand the suspects until the conclusion of the investigations. (TamilNet)

Colombo household checking again

The new Inspector General of Police (IGP), Mahinda Balasooriya, on his assumption of duty has reimposed checking of house holds of Tamil residents in Colombo. As in the LTTE war period, police personnel have been instructed to question any visitor lodged in a residence not registered with the respective police station in the area and to take any person living in a household unregistered into police custody. Meanwhile, police personnel attached to stations in Colombo complain that they have to perform duties of civic police after fulfilling their normal 12-hour duty. The renewed rounds of checking have drained police personnel attached to other branches due to renewed checking of households after the new IGP assumed office. According to police sources there are 10-member units of civic police in a police station and these personnel function under an officer who is in charge of a given street. The civic police functions under a DIG. (TamilNet)

IDPs suffer in flooded camps

Most of the Sri Lanka Army (SLA) internment camps for Vanni IDPs in Vavuniyaa being flooded due to the current down pour many of the IDPs held in Menik Farm camp had fled from their shelters seeking refuge in the public halls and school buildings located inside the camp. Meanwhile, amid heavy rains and thunder civil authorities continue to transfer IDPs from Menik Farm during nights and drop them in public places in areas where their homes are located. These IDPs with their bags and baggage are stranded without any one to take them to safe places till they find their way to their homes in nights. (TamilNet)

35,000 students still interned

Thirty-five thousand students displaced from Vanni in the last leg of war are still being detained in internment camps in Vavuniyaa. The number of IDP students in these internment camps earlier was about 65,000. The number had dropped to 35,000 following current resettlement, education authority sources claim. UNESCO has provided 50,000 US dollars for the maintenance of these IDP students. Part of UNESCO funds would be used to improve mental health related facilities of the students and for this purpose multimedia projectors for short films, computer games, music, drawing materials and books worth about Rs.3.5 million were handed over to the education authorities. (TamilNet)

No shelter for displaced taken to Jaffna

The Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) taken to Jaffna district from the Sri Lanka Army (SLA) internment camps in Vavuniya are suffering in pouring rain without sufficient shelter for them. Divisional Secretaries (DSs) of Jaffna district find hard to meet their immediate needs for want of funds. The ten government ministers recently appointed by the President of Sri Lanka for Divisional Secretary areas in Jaffna to function as resettlement coordinators have failed to return to Jaffna after their first visit. Jaffna district DSs are at a quandary to take decisions without the approval of the respective ministers and due to lack of funds to spend on the immediate needs of the IDPs. 3,964 persons of 1,242 families were brought to Jaffna recently. They have nothing but tarpaulins to stay in and sufficient arrangements have not been made to meet their immediate needs as rain pours down in Jaffna district. (TamilNet)

R2P reduced to "noble rhetoric"

During an invited lecture at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) of London University, Noam Chomsky, one of the world's well known intellectual and professor emeritus of linguistics at MIT, said on Sri Lanka, that although there's "a lot of noble rhetoric about Responsibility to Protect (R2P), there is no particular Western advantage in protecting people who are being slaughtered, and are being thrown into concentration camps. Somehow these didn't make it in the noble rhetoric," and added Sri Lanka was a "horror story, especially towards the end." Chomsky added that in the way West acts, "there is no protection for any people who it doesn't do any good [to the West] to protect, and basically Sri Lankans [Tamils] are in that unfortunate position." On China's engagement with Sri Lanka, Chomsky said, "they [China] don't gain anything by supporting the Tamil refugees in concentration camps, so why should they do it [help]? Infact, most of the South supported the Sri Lankan Government. That's who they are," Chomsky said. On R2P, Chomsky referred to a discussion he had this summer in the UN General Assembly, and said the "hypocrisy was so profound, it was suffocating." (TamilNet)