The Northern Muslims claimed that lack of information and resources prevented them from going back to the North. Testifying before the LLRC some of them claimed that they preferred to stay in Puttalam citing better economic opportunities as the reason.

The Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC) met representatives of Northern Muslims, (IDPs) driven away from the North in 1990 by the LTTE, and those from the host community of Puttalam on 7th January 2011. (Read More)

Former President Chandrika Kumaratunga is to testify before the Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC), its Secretary S.B Athugoda said yesterday.

A letter signed by LLRC chairman C.R.De.Silva was sent on December 31 inviting the former President to come before the commission but there has been no response from her, he said.

Earlier the Commission invited Opposition Leader Ranil Wickremesinghe on the phone to testify before the commission but he had refused the invitation.

Later LLRC chairman C.R.D

Around 3,000 young girls under 16 years of age become pregnant annually, said Dr.Nilmini Hemachandra the Community Health Specialist of the Family Health Division.

The Information Department said in a statement, quoting Dr. Hemachandra, that “the incidence of pregnancies in Sri Lanka is between 380,000 to 420,000 and, of those, juvenile pregnancies amount to 25,000. 7.5 percent of the total comprise females below 20 years of age and 0.75 percent comprise females under 16.” The Ministry of Health, the Family Health Division and th

The main opposition UNP yesterday alleged that the fresh report that the decision to allow the UN panel to communicate with the Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC) without visiting Sri Lanka was a another move by the government to avoid humiliation.

UNP MP Lakshman Kiriella alleged that this was a tactic by the government to get away without granting visas to the panel."The government earlier boasted that visas would not be granted to the visiting panel but now it is thinking of ways and means to avoid humiliation

A former Tamil militant in Sri Lanka has admitted that his comrades killed more than 600 policemen 20 years ago in a part of the country he controlled.

But, he said, he was in a different part of Sri Lanka at the time.

Vinayagamoorthy Muralitharan, commonly known as Colonel Karuna Amman, was testifying before a commission looking into the Sri Lankan war.

Col Karuna's defection from the Tamil Tigers six years ago is seen as having led to their military defeat in 2009.

Assassinating former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi was a mistake and it turned India against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), a former Tamil Tiger leader turned government minister has said.

Vinayagamoorthy Muralitharan, popularly known Colonel Karuna, told the Lessons Learnt and
Reconciliation Commission (LLRC) – a government-appointed panel looking into the civil war -- that initially the rebel outfit had influence in India and even claimed to have been trained there.

B

The military wing of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) was not involved in terrorist bombings  and massacres of civilians during the armed struggle carried out by the militant outfit, according to Karuna Amman, a former military commander of the LTTE, who is now a Deputy Minister in the Mahinda Rajapaksa government.

Vinayagamoorthy Muralitharan alias Karuna Amman, told the Presidential Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC) here on Monday, that only Tiger chieftain Velupillai Prabhakaran and the intelligen

Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC) Secretary S.B. Atugoda said yesterday the Commission would decide whether it was necessary to meet the United Nations Experts Panel probing alleged human rights violations in Sri Lanka.

Mr. Atugoda said neither the government nor the UN had approached the LLRC about a meeting between the commissioners and the Experts Panel though he was aware of such an interest shown by the Panel.

“We are an independent body. Therefore if the UN panel