We also talked about the nature of economic activity and development in the North and the East, where Dr. Saravanamuttu noted that “economic development by itself cannot be the sole instrument of national unit, reconciliation, integration”. Sri Lanka’s political culture and the growing intra-party violence within the UPFA, the future of Tamil politics, reconciliation, the role of the international community, prospects for dissent and democratic debate post-war and modes of progressive engagement between the Tamil diaspora are also issues broached in this interview.

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The Sri Lanka government was found guilty of war crimes, a peoples tribunal in Ireland has said.

In its preliminary findings, the People’s Tribunal on Sri Lanka (PTSL) that conducted hearings from 14 to 16 January in Dublin has also concluded that the Sri Lanka government is also guilty of crimes against humanity.

However, the-pro Tamil Tiger groups’ accusation that the government carried out Tamil genocide at the last phase of war between the security forces and the LTTE needs to be investigated.

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UN Special Rapporteur for Extrajudicial, Summary or Arbitrary Executions Philip Alston raised a hornet’s nest recently by resurrecting the controversial Channel 4 ‘execution’ video and deeming it to be authentic on the basis of a report produced by three independent experts. The government immediately rejected the findings, accused him of being politically motivated and refused to heed his call for an inquiry. LAKBIMAnEWS interviewed Alston on some of the niggling questions his investigation had raised.

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Sri Lanka’s court of appeal on Monday freed on bail a Tamil editor whose 20-year prison sentence last year for supporting “terrorism” drew international criticism, a court official said.

J.S. Tissainayagam, who edited North Eastern Monthly magazine in Colombo, was told to surrender his passport and to post 50,000 rupees (437 dollars) in bail pending a full appeal hearing, the official said.

Tissainayagam has appealed his conviction in August on charges of raising money for terrorism and of causing racial hatred through his writings about Tamils affected by the country’s 37-year separatist conflict.

The sentence of 20 years in jail with hard labour was condemned by the European Union, the United States and international press freedom groups.

In May, US President Barack Obama cited Tissainayagam, who also wrote for the Colombo-based Sunday Times newspaper, as one of the “emblematic examples” of a persecuted journalist.

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The main political formation of Tamil political parties, the Tamil National Alliance, would announce its stance on the presidential election tomorrow, but, if current developments are any indicator, the decision would hardly be a consensus. Cracks are wide open in the once cohesive TNA: one constituent party, the All Ceylon Tamil Congress (ACTC) has broken ranks with the rest to announce a unilateral boycott of the election. An earlier proposition by the TNA’s influential troika, party leader Rajavarothiam Sampanthan, Mavai Senathiraja and Suresh Premachandran to support the common opposition candidate Gen Sarath Fonseka was shot down at a party’s parliamentry group meeting. New Delhi, which had been brokering a grand bargain of a political solution in exchange of TNA support to either of the main candidates has been displeased with TNA loner, Sivajilingam’s candidature, and denied him entry into India.

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COLOMBO (AFP) – Sri Lanka’s president has given legal experts four more months to study a US State Department report cataloging alleged war crimes on the island, the presidency said in a statement Monday.

President Mahinda Rajapakse extended the December 31 deadline of the panel he appointed in November to formulate a response to the US report, which accused Sri Lankan forces of war crimes while battling Tamil separatists.

“The president has… extended by four months the period given to the committee to study and report on the US State Department Report,” the president’s office said in a statement.

A recent query by the United Nations over remarks by the country’s former army chief Sarath Fonseka that some surrendering rebels were killed in cold blood was also being referred to the panel for study, the statement said.

Sri Lanka’s foreign ministry has already dismissed the US report as “unsubstantiated and devoid of corroborative evidence.”

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Five years after the tsunami swept over the shores of Sri Lanka destroying everything in its path, victims are continuing to rebuild their lives. But their efforts have been plagued by nagging questions over widespread corruption in programmes expected to provide thousands of houses worth billions of rupees.

More than 35,000 people in Sri Lanka were killed and more than a half million displaced when an earthquake off the Indonesian coast on December 26, 2004 triggered a series of tsunamis along coastlines in the Indian Ocean. Nearly 100,000 houses in Sri Lanka were destroyed by the deadly waves.

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The Sri Lankan government on Thursday announced that the letter sent by Secretary of the Ministry of Disaster Management and Human Rights Rajiva Wijesinghe in response to questions raised by U.N. Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial Summary or Arbitrary Executions Phillip Alston, on charges made by the former Army Chief Sarath Fonseka against Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa about the sequence of events in the last phase of Eelam War IV (May 16 to 19), should be treated as withdrawn.

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A Human Rights activist from Sri Lankan capital Colombo, on conditions of anonymity told WarWithoutWitness that, Sri Lankan Military Intelligence Operatives are planning a secret undercover operation to execute most of the 10,000 odd Tamil Prisoners of War (PoW) before the forthcoming Presidential election to be held on Jan. 26, 2010. WarWithoutWitness couldn’t independently verify the authenticity or credibility of this alert. Given the track record of human rights violations by Sri Lankan defense forces & the number of peoples life at risk, extracts of the alert is reproduced below ‘AS IS’.

Alert from a Human Rights Activist in Colombo, Sri Lanka;

“..one of my friend connected to sri Lankan military, who is concerned about human beings life told that a group of military intelligence personal with the orders from top boss are planning to stage play a secret attack on one of the major camp where LTTE Prisoners are detained without ICRC, UN or outside access. They are planning to use some of the LTTE leaders currently in detention to launch an attack on the prison itself (like a rescue mission from remaining LTTE) and execute LTTE prisoners during the counter attack by military personnel providing security to the prison. It is going to happen before presidential election. If this is done this will be a big killing ..”

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The communiqu� also says it is questionable whether this vessel belongs to the LTTE or to another Co. He alleged that this ship has been bought by cash payment from Djakarata, Indonesia by the intervention of a Sri Lanka Naval Officer. He challenged the Govt. to show evidence that the vessel is of the LTTE. The LTTE had a fleet of vessels, 20 large ships and a thousand small vessels according to media reports. Of them ,the Army destroyed one large ship. What is important now is the answer to the question as to who is presently enjoying the income from these remaining ships.

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