The massacre of ten Tamils, including a local parish priest, by the Sri Lankan army was remembered today in Mannar. 

Armed soldiers arrived at the Vankalai Church on January 6, 1985, and shot dead Father Mariya Bastian and nine other locals, including children who were living with him, at the entrance of the building. 

The Sri Lankan military announced that it had constructed houses for two “deserving” Tamil families in Jaffna, where it continues to occupy vast swathes of lands, without stating how the Tamil families were chosen.

Mahinda Rajapaksa, currently Sri Lanka's opposition leader, vowed not to allow the country to be divided through a new constitution. 

Referring to attempts by the UNP and TNA to establish a new constitution for the island, Rajapaksa warned it would "pave the way to divide the country". 

"The national question could not be resolved through a Constitution, which would incite hatred among the communities but it should be a Constitution agreeable to all communities of Sinhala, Muslim and Tamil," Rajapaksa said, speaking at an event in Amparai yesterday. 

The 'World Day of War Orphans' was marked at event in Barathipuram, near Muttur, Trincomalee today. 

A local Hindu organisation distributed educational material and books to students, particularly those from families of the disappeared. 

 

The Sri Lankan military held a series of elaborate events in Mullaitivu last month as two divisions celebrated their occupation of the region, almost ten years since army's massacre tens of thousands of Tamils.

Human rights lawyer and former leader of the All Ceylon Tamil Congress (ACTC), Kumar Ponnambalam, was remembered today in Jaffna and Batticaloa, 19 years after his assassination in Colombo.

A Sinhala Buddhist monk called for Sinhalese people in Mullaitivu to receive rights over the land which they illegally occupy, and said that military forces should not be removed from the North, during a visit to flood-affected families in Mullaitivu.

Seelarathana, a monk from the Colombo suburb of Battaramulla, made the remarks while visiting families in the areas of Kokkilai and Nayaru, where local Tamils and representatives have been contesting ongoing Sinhala colonisation and land-grabs, especially under the Mahaweli scheme.

<p>Former Chief Minister of the Northern Province and Supreme Court judge C V Wigneswaran has criticised the Sri Lankan army commander for saying that those who were in hiding from the LTTE now criticise the army’s activities in the North.</p> <p>Asked to respond to the jibe by Tamil press, Wigneswaran emphasised that it was always state forces that the Tamil people lived in fear of, and that current militarisation activities could not suddenly redeem the forces of their atrocities.</p> <p>“In 1983 I investigated the deaths caused by [Sri Lankan] army atrocities in Mallakam, when nobody else would,” Wigneswaran said. “I had no reasons to hide.”</p>

<p>The Indian ministry of external affairs (MEA) has not yet approved plans to prepare a report on developing Jaffna’s Palaly airport, with the Airports Authority of India (AAI) citing political instability as a reason for the delay.</p> <p>The AAI has completed a detailed project report for developing an airport in Kalay in Myanmar but the MEA is yet to give the required permission for a similar report to be produced on Palaly.</p>

<p>Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) has agreed a $1.85 billion loan to Sri Lanka to build a Light Rail Transit (LRT) system.&nbsp;</p> <p>The agreement was put on hold in November in response to the country's political turmoil which followed the president's sacking of the prime minister and attempt to dissolve parliament.&nbsp;</p> <p>JICA will also provide technical assistance for the project.&nbsp;</p> <p>The LRT, aimed at reducing congestion in Colombo, will run for 17km between Colombo Fort and Malambe.&nbsp;</p>