India mistaken on arms and talks - experts

[TamilNet, Monday, 16 February 2009, 19:43 GMT]
Indian Home Minister P Chidambaram’s call for the LTTE to surrender arms was not in keeping with international practice on conflict resolution, but an endorsement of the Sri Lankan government’s hardline position, scholars of conflict and peace said Monday. They pointed a number of successful peace processes, including those with the ANC, IRA and Nepal’s Maoists had proceeded without making arms surrender a precondition for talks. There had also been several peace processes involving the LTTE without this precondition, a scholar of Sri Lanka’s conflict pointed out. The Indian government was in effect supporting the Rajapakse government’s efforts to avoid negotiations on a lasting settlement by making talks conditional on a demand unacceptable to any party to a conflict, some academics opined.
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UN sheds responsibilities - NGO official

[TamilNet, Monday, 16 February 2009, 18:01 GMT]
The UN said 15 of its local staff and 75 of their dependents were not allowed to leave the conflict area by the Tamil Tigers, who had forcibly recruited one of the UN staffers, reported AFP on Monday. "The UN for the first time openly acknowledges its agenda of withdrawing even the remaining few local staff from the conflict zone, completely shedding its responsibility of caring for the civilians trapped here," said Velupillai Sivanadiyar, the president of the Tamils Rehabilitation Organisation (TRO), the only NGO working in Vanni. The latest UN stand implies that the apex security system of the world has written off the fate of more than 250,000 civilians to the discretion of Colombo’s hostile and encircling army of 50,000, a ratio of 1:5.
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RSF accuses Colombo of "War Crimes"

[TamilNet, Monday, 16 February 2009, 17:36 GMT]
In an unprecedented move, Reporters sans frontières (RSF), a Paris-based media watchdog, in a press release issued today, expressed "revulsion at the death of Tamil journalist" Sathyamurthy in Sri Lanka Army (SLA) bombardment, and accused Colombo of committing war crimes, asserting "Army air strikes and artillery fire on areas where there are tens of thousands of civilians, including Tamil journalists, are war crimes." Sathyamoorthy was killed inside the "Safe Zone" demarcated by Sri Lanka late last week. Several hundreds Tamil refugees herded into the safe zone by the Government of Sri Lanka have been killed by targeted artillery and air-attacks inside the safe zone.
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Verbal shows fail to save lives in Vanni

[TamilNet, Monday, 16 February 2009, 15:09 GMT]
“War is also theirs, peace is also theirs; therefore the solution also should be theirs. Why don’t they come out with that and end the suffering?” asked a sulking school teacher in Vanni, frustrated at the diplomatic games and dilly-dallying of world powers in protecting the life and dignity of civilians, neither by themselves nor allowing the UN to do it. But the solution some of the powers envisage in what they call the ‘post-LTTE era’ goes back to the concentration camps of the Nazi times.
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Bomb blast kills 12 STF commandos including an officer in Ampaa’rai

[TamilNet, Sunday, 15 February 2009, 10:25 GMT]
A bomb explosion in Kanchikudichchaanaa’ru area in Ampaa'rai killed more than 12 Special Task Force (STF) commandos including their officer Saturday around 2:40 p.m at a site where preparations were being made to lay the foundation stone for a Buddhist Vihara, according to Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) sources in Ampaa'rai. The sources confirmed the killing of more than STF commandos and injury to many other commandos.
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US Congresswoman calls for ceasefire negotiations

[TamilNet, Saturday, 14 February 2009, 19:28 GMT]
Democratic Congresswoman Nital M Lowey, of 18th District of New York, and Chairwoman of the powerful State and Foreign Operations Appropriations Subcommittee expressed concern on the continued violence and the resulting "humanitarian disaster, including massive civilian casualties and the displacement of approximately 250,000 innocent civilians," called on Sri Lanka and the LTTE to negotiate a ceasefire immediately, in statement issued this week.
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Grand scale murder, rape of screened civilians feared, TNA MP alerts

[TamilNet, Saturday, 14 February 2009, 14:34 GMT]
Around 190 males were murdered and 130 females were taken for sexual abuse among the thousands of civilians so far fled and screened by the Sri Lanka Army (SLA), accused Tamil National Alliance MP S. Gajendran Saturday, citing information he received from the inmates of internment camps and from his contacts in Vavuniyaa. The sources informed him that murdered were secretly buried in Anuradhapura. "Unless there is no immediate international supervision and international monitors, situation turning into another Yugoslavia cannot be prevented," the MP said.
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Poignant acts of self-immolation

[TamilNet, Saturday, 14 February 2009, 10:45 GMT]
It may sound good to say that there is no place for feudal expressions in a 'postmodern' world. It may be true that there can be no second word about resolving issues on a democratic plane. But the first warnings have come pointing to the flaws in the handling of the situation by democratic powers and calling for effective rectifications. They have come from non-combatants and have come spontaneously. The extreme expression of self-denial, openly denouncing injustices perpetrated on a people by ganged-up authority, has come from educated people of ordinary walks of life committing self-immolation.
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STF commando killed, another injured in Ampaa’rai

[TamilNet, Saturday, 14 February 2009, 06:15 GMT]
Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) combatants killed a Special Task Force (STF) commando and seriously injured another in a direct confrontation Friday around 7:30 a.m in Lagugala area in Ampaa’rai district, Ampaa’rai district LTTE said.
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SL Police arrests Tamil youth in Kandy

[TamilNet, Saturday, 14 February 2009, 02:48 GMT]
The Kandy Police Tuesday arrested a Tamil youth and have detained him in the police station for further inquiry by the Terrorist Intelligence Division (TID). The Kandy Police said he was taken into custody on a report by the Colombo Terrorist Intelligence Unit that he had been a member of the LTTE intelligence wing.
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5 Tamil youths arrested in Trincomalee

[TamilNet, Saturday, 14 February 2009, 01:42 GMT]
The Kuchchave'li Police in Trincomalee district Tuesday arrested five Tamil youths, who are residents of Kuchchave'li village located along Trincomalee – Pulmoaddai highway, police sources said. The arrested are now being detained in the police station and are being subjected to interrogation by the Terrorist Intelligence Division (TID) of the Sri Lanka Police.
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LTTE welcomes appointment of British Special Envoy

[TamilNet, Friday, 13 February 2009, 19:03 GMT]
Liberation Tigers of Tamileelam (LTTE) has welcomed the appointment of Des Browne as Special Envoy to Sri Lanka by the British Prime Minister on Thursday. In a letter addressed to Mr. Des Browne, LTTE's Head of International Diplomatic Relations S. Pathmanathan said the British government had a moral responsibility to intervene to stop the genocide being committed by the Government of Sri Lanka (GoSL) on Tamil civilians in the island of Sri Lanka.
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STF arrests Tamil woman in Batticaloa

[TamilNet, Friday, 13 February 2009, 18:36 GMT]
Special Task Force (STF) commandos arrested Friday morning a 24-year-old woman at her house in Ka’radiyanaa’ru police division in Batticaloa district, claiming that they had been informed that the woman is a former member of Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), sources in Batticaloa said. STF commandos and the paramilitary men operating with them are abducting and arresting young men and women who had been in the LTTE in Paduvaankarai area and now living a normal life, relatives of the abducted persons said.
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STF shoots dead two youths in Ampaa’rai

[TamilNet, Friday, 13 February 2009, 16:04 GMT]
Special Task Force (STF) commandos lying in ambush shot and killed Friday early morning two youths in Kedaoya in Lagugala area, sources in Ampaa’rai said. STF claimed that the two youths were Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) members and that they recovered two T56 rifles and 3 hand grenades from the youths.
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India changes language with measured ambiguity

[TamilNet, Friday, 13 February 2009, 01:30 GMT]
Indian President Prathiba Patil in her address to the joint sitting of Indian Parliament on Thursday declared that India continued to support a negotiated political settlement in Sri Lanka within the framework of an undivided Sri Lanka acceptable to all the communities, including the Tamil community. Ms. Prathiba Patil urged Colombo and the Tigers to return to negotiating table.
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British ex-defence secretary appointed special envoy to Sri Lanka

[TamilNet, Thursday, 12 February 2009, 15:44 GMT]
Britain named a special envoy to Sri Lanka on Thursday to help bring about a political solution to the island’s long-running conflict and to ease hardships to Tamil civilians trapped in the Vanni warzone, UK press reports said. "I've asked Des Browne, our former defence secretary, to be an envoy for Sri Lanka," British Prime Minister Gordon Brown told a parliamentary committee. Brown said the priorities were to achieve a ceasefire and to get a political settlement, Reuters reported. Meanwhile, US Ambassador to Sri Lanka, Robert Blake was quoted by the Washington Post as saying the Sri Lankan military’s capture of the Vanni region – which he expects within weeks – will not end the LTTE’s armed struggle and that Colombo must reach a political settlement with the Tamils.
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Singapore Tamils protest newspaper misreporting

[TamilNet, Thursday, 12 February 2009, 13:57 GMT]
Singapore Tamils have protested misreporting of a news in the headlines of the country's Tamil daily Tamil Murasu last Thursday, which read that the LTTE had claimed they would even attack Tamil Nadu, media circles in Singapore said.
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Civilian refugees imprisoned in internment camps in Vavuniyaa

[TamilNet, Thursday, 12 February 2009, 11:55 GMT]
The civilian refugees who either fled the war zone or caught by the Sri Lanka Army (SLA) are denied not only the freedom of movement to go out of the buildings in which they are detained under 'near-prison' conditions, but are also denied freedom of movement inside the camp itself after 6:00 p.m. by the SLA, even for the call of nature, on grounds of condemnation that they were linked to the LTTE, said NGO activists on condition of anonymity.
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'Tamil Nadu needs to go beyond demonstrations'

[TamilNet, Thursday, 12 February 2009, 08:49 GMT]
If at all there is any positive impact of the unprecedented uprising and demonstrations, staged spontaneously by the masses of Tamil Nadu and the diaspora, it is the inward awakening of global Tamils to the forces of oppression and to the defiance of the oppressors, whether domestic or international. A historic responsibility lies on the leaders of Tamil Nadu and on those who uphold the struggle of the oppressed, to channel the positive energy generated from the uprising to achieve its goals rather than allowing it to be carried away by the machinations of the oppressors, writes opinion columnist Chivanadi.
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Tamil youth arrested in Anuradhapura

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 11 February 2009, 20:25 GMT]
A Tamil youth was arrested Tuesday in Neriyaku'lam in Anuradhapura district by a special team of the Terrorist Intelligence Division (TID) and is being detained in the police for further inquiry, said Senior Superintendent of Police Ranjit Gunasekara, Police spokesman in Colombo district. The youth is a resident of Maangku'lam.
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