"Initial hopes for accountability and justice are fading fast in the Tamil population," said Mr. Mario Arulthas, Advocacy Director for People for Equality and Relief in Lanka (P.E.A.R.L.) during an informal event at the 32nd Human Rights Council on Friday June 24th. The panel moderated by David Whaley (a former UN Resident Coordinator), also featured Ms. Nimalka Fernando (IMADR), Mr. Rajith Keerthi Tennakoon (Campaign for Free and Fair Elections, CaFFE), and Mr. Ruki Fernando (INFORM).

The Sri Lankan government gains the most amount of tax from intoxicants from the Tamil North-East stated Maithripala Sirisena.

The Sri Lankan president said that the areas were the government collects the most tax was from Jaffna, Nuwara Eliya and Batticaloa respectively.

Alongside a rises in alcohol use, there has been an increase of illegal drug usage across the North-East, which civil society activists and politicians say has been contributing to the breakdown of the social fabric of the North-East.

Tamil protestors took to the streets of Jaffna today to demand the Sri Lankan government deliver accountability for their disappeared relatives, as well as release land that continues to be occupied by the military.

"With the Sri Lankan government winding back commitments to reconciliation and justice measures, it’s up to the international community to hold them to account," writes Tamil activist Nirmanusan Balasundaram in the Guardian.

"For Tamil war victims and survivors, the statements by the Sri Lankan president and prime minister are indeed disheartening. Apart from a few symbolic returns of occupied Tamil lands and the release of some political prisoners, unsurprisingly, there have been no constructive actions to address wartime accountability or end the culture of impunity."

 

The Sri Lankan government cannot continue to blame members of the former regime for the lack of progress in furthering accountability said the Global Tamil Forum’s spokesperson Suren Surendiran, in a piece published in Colombo Telegraph on Saturday.

“Barely four months since [the] Government of Sri Lanka internationally committing by co-sponsoring Resolution A/HRC/30/L.29 in Geneva, the U-turn came in spectacular fashion from the highest authority in the country, the President himself,” said Mr Surendiran.

“As if there wasn’t enough trust deficit between communities in Sri Lanka, this major let down, haemorrhaged the trust of Tamils in the new President and in his new coalition government.”

 

Photographs: Tamil Guardian

Families of the disappeared gathered to protest over the lack of consultation with the victim community in producing the Office of Missing Persons (OMP) bill that gained the confidence of the victims.

In a protest organised by the Forum for Searching Handed, Kidnapped and Forcibly Disappeared Relatives and the Vavuniya District Citizens Team, protesters gathered in front of the town centre accusing Sri Lanka’s President of continuing to protect people responsible for abduction.

The Sri Lankan Army should leave the preschools it runs across Vanni and Kilinochchi, the Northern Provincial Council decided in a vote this week.

In a resolution passed at the NPC's 55th session, members called for army personnel to withdraw from preschools currently being run by the C.S.T army wing.

Over 18,000 children are reported to be studying in these army-run schools.