End of Emergency, Violence in Jaffna and Dole destroying national parkland

It should really be a good day, today,  the Emergency has been ended.  But there was also this report from Groundviews on my FB which was disturbing
 Around 100 young men from Navanthurai, a village in the Jaffna District, were detained in an operation conducted by the Sri Lanka Army around 1.15am on 23rd August 2011. The villagers were severely beaten by the army and dragged to the main road near the Navanthurai Army Detachment located around 300 meters from the village. The men were loaded onto buses and handed over to the Jaffna police around 4 am and taken to the Jaffna courts by 10 am and produced before the Jaffna District Judge at around 1 pm the same day (23rd August). Despite their injuries, the men were held without treatment for over 8 hours. 20 of the most seriously injured were admitted to the Jaffna General Hospital after 10 am, on orders by the District Judge. The rest were denied treatment until around 7.30 pm when we received information that all detainees had been admitted for treatment to the Jaffna Hospital.
and a colleague of mine had a call from Kalpitiya about some guys that were abducted by people who came in two military tanks  into the area and assaulted a group of people for, in the caller's opinion, no rhyme or reason.  Someone else pointed out that all the 'grease yaka' or grease devil stories are happening in minority areas.  Others worried that this could be a means to create unrest ( '83 remembered?)  and reimpose the emergency.  So euphoria is short lived, but conspiracy theory is alive and thriving!

By the way, today's Daily Mirror had a huge photo spread of  Sri Lanka's first ever National Green Awards distributed to grinning private sector CEOs by none other then His Excellency himself.  In  the wake of what we have heard about national park land being doled out to foreign companies to grow bananas, a National Green Awards scheme is akin to President Obama winning the Nobel  peace prize!
 Five thousand acres from the Somawathie National park and a farm belonging to National Livestock Development Board (NLDB) have been cleared by Dole Lanka, Sri Lankan branch of the infamous US based Dole Food Company, using army muscle to commence  a banana plantation. However, the final project is to span over 11 600 acres of the park, between Kandakadu Ela and Mahaweli River, destroying eco-systems and blocking elephant corridors. (from an article in Lakbima News by Rathindra Kuruwita)

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