SLA soldier killed, 1 wounded in mine explosions in Batticaloa

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 03 December 2008, 12:15 GMT]
Liberation Tigers of Tamileelam (LTTE) sources in Batticaloa said Wednesday that a Sri Lanka Army (SLA) soldier seriously wounded in a mine explosion Monday on Vadamunai - Welkande Road succumbed to his injuries and another SLA soldier lost his leg in a second explosion on the same road on Wednesday.
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US government donates USD 100,000 for flood relief in North-East

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 03 December 2008, 11:35 GMT]
The United States Government will provide $100,000 for emergency relief to assist people affected by the flooding in the North and the East, said a press release issued by the Embassy of he United States of America. The US donation will be used for non-food relief items and targeted to victims in Jaffna and in the Vanni, where particularly serious flooding has occurred in recent days. Ambassador Blake requested funds from the US government after Major General Hettiarachchi of the Disaster Management Centre asked for American assistance, the press release said hinting that the aid would be channeled
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'Knowing friends and enemies'

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 02 December 2008, 15:14 GMT]
“Exploiting the Mumbai carnage and the mood of indignation in India, the Colombo government is calling for the collaboration of India in labeling and isolating all Tamils as terrorists, just because they demand for their rights. Mr. P. Chidambaram, the new Home Minister of India, carrying Indian as well as Tamil identities needs to be additionally alert in what has to be done”, read Tuesday’s editorial of Janasakti, the official newspaper of the Communist Party of India. Meanwhile, an Eezham Tamil foreign national and a political analyst, now living with the IDPs in Vanni, responded to TamilNet with his remarks on current development, especially after 26 November, 2008.
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Quick IDP action averts carnage from Cluster bombs

[TamilNet, Monday, 01 December 2008, 01:33 GMT]
“Three bombs exploded first time. Second time, when the bomber returned after 5 minutes from the opposite direction, there were 3 more blasts. But, the third time, bombs exploded with a parachute effect, like an auto explosion,”  said the head of the camp of the Internally Displaced Peoples (IDPs) that came under indiscriminate attack by the Sri Lanka Air Force (SLAF) in the early hours of Saturday. Many children fled into the jungle during the five-minute window before the aircraft returned for the second attack. If not for the fast action of Ketheeswaran, the head of the settlement, and Pulendran, an intrepid IDP, in escorting and moving IDPs away from the refugee camp, the cluster bombs would have wrought havoc killing many, according to the refugees who escaped. TamilNet interviewed both Ketheeswaran and Pulendran, and several wounded civilians for this feature.
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Churn in Tamil Nadu reopens spectre of R2P - Prof. David

[TamilNet, Sunday, 30 November 2008, 23:48 GMT]
Contrasting  the relatively slow changing and stable U.S. foreign policy to Pandora’s Box of unpredictable possibilities of India’s foreign policy towards Sri Lanka, Prof David in an op-ed column in Sri Lanka’s weekly Lakbima, asserts that “if  TN [Tamil Nadu] boils over not all the protestations of sovereign rights by the Sinhala state will count for a farthing; it will be R2P in its most rough manifestation.” Even ruling out outright military intervention, Prof David says, the new administration in India may take a tough line including using trade as a weapon, harass the Sri Lankan State, or turn a blind-eye to LTTE military activities.
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SLN arrests 26 persons in Northern seas seeking refuge in Tamil Nadu

[TamilNet, Sunday, 30 November 2008, 20:46 GMT]
Sri Lanka Navy (SLN) arrested 26 persons, including a 6-months-old infant, who were trying to escape on boats on their way to Tamil Nadu seeking refuge. Civilians took the perilous journey to escape continuing artillery barrage and bombings of civilian settlements in Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) territories in Vanni. When the arrested refugees were produced before the Point Pedro magistrate Sunday, the Magistrate ordered the refugees to be placed in the Rehabilitation Camp.
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International media, human rights watchdogs lopsided - Jaffna MP

[TamilNet, Saturday, 29 November 2008, 20:39 GMT]
"The Colombo government is embarked upon a killing spree of children and women in refugee camps who are already victims of war, displacement, cyclone and floods. This act of 'state terrorism' is in what way less deplorable than the Mumbai killings, for failing to attract condemnation and action from the International Community," asks Padmini Sithamparanathan, Tamil National Alliance MP for Jaffna.
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Kungchupparanthan: first debacle of SLA in battle for Ki'linochchi

[TamilNet, Friday, 28 November 2008, 22:55 GMT]
Several decomposed corpses of Sri Lanka Army (SLA) soldiers were still lying within the no-man area between the SLA and Liberation Tigers of Tamileelam (LTTE) frontiers in Kugnchupparanthan no man zone, informed sources revealed on Friday. The SLA soldiers had maneuvered deep into LTTE trap, according to the source, which said it was the first debacle of the SLA in the battle for Ki'linochchi. At least 75 SLA soldiers were confirmed dead so far, the source said adding more than 160 of the soldiers, who managed to reach back to their barracks, had been injured. The LTTE, which earlier said 43 SLA soldiers were killed and 70 wounded, is yet to release further updates.
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80 Tamils arrested in Colombo, Kandy

[TamilNet, Friday, 28 November 2008, 17:42 GMT]
More than eighty Tamil civilians, including eight women, arrested in Colombo and Kandy in separate cordon and search operations conducted by the Sri Lanka Army (SLA) and police on Wednesday and Thursday are detained in respective police stations and are being interrogated.
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4 STF killed in Ampaa'rai - LTTE

[TamilNet, Friday, 28 November 2008, 10:52 GMT]
Four commandos of a Sri Lankan Special Task Force (STF) unit that launched a search operation into a jungle area in Poththuvil in Ampaa'rai district were killed and one wounded in a counter-attack carried out by the Liberation Tigers of Tamileelam (LTTE) Friday around 11:50 a.m., according to LTTE official Nilavan in Ampaa'rai.
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Vaiko addresses 40,000 at London Remembrance Day event

[TamilNet, Friday, 28 November 2008, 03:09 GMT]
Over 40,000 expatriate Tamils participated in the Remembrance Day ceremony in London on Thursday, a record turnout for the usually well-attended annual event. Vaiko, leader of the MDMK party in Tamil Nadu delivered the keynote address at the ExCel centre, London’s largest auditorium, whilst, earlier, the 2008 Heroes’ Day speech by LTTE leader Velupillai Pirapaharan was heard by attendees as it was broadcast live via satellite from Vanni to Diaspora centres around the world.
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Former Indian PM V.P. Singh passes away

[TamilNet, Friday, 28 November 2008, 02:01 GMT]
Former Prime Minister of India, Vishwanath Pratap Singh, passed away in New Delhi at the age of 77 on Thursday. He was Prime Minister of India between December 1989 to November 1990.
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Faultline of Sri Lanka’s conflict now clear - paper

[TamilNet, Thursday, 27 November 2008, 19:50 GMT]
Pointing out that it is as Sinhalese have become more and more confident of winning the war that overt racism against Tamils has become blatant, the Tamil Guardian newspaper this week said “what is qualitatively different between the late nineties and now is the clarity of the ethnic faultline in Sri Lanka.” The paper, published Wednesday, argued “Since independence the island’s core problem has been Sinhala domination and … persecution, of the Tamils. In the global liberal bubble of the nineties, this fundamental truth was subsumed amidst the logics of underdevelopment, resource wars and so on.”
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India is our friend, we are not against any country, remove the hindrance of ban: Pirapaharan

[TamilNet, Thursday, 27 November 2008, 12:31 GMT]
While conveying his love and gratitude to the people and leaders of Tamil Nadu and leaders of India who have grasped the heartbeat of Eezham Tamils and have come forward with timely support, the LTTE leader V.Pirapaharan in his Hero’s Day speech on Thursday requested them to voice firmly for Tamil Eelam and to undertake conducive measures to remove the ban, a great hindrance to amicable relationship between India and the LTTE. “At no stage did we ever consider India as an enemy force. Our people always consider India as our friend. They have great expectations that the Indian super power will take a positive stand on our national question”, he said. The LTTE leader also requested the world powers to remove the ban on it, citing that the LTTE never schemed any act against any country and the Tamil struggle is not against the geopolitical, national or economic interests of any country.
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Vaiko urges British Parliament to restore Eezham Tamil sovereignty

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 26 November 2008, 19:06 GMT]
Vaiko, the general secretary of Marumalarchi Dravida Munnetta Kazhakam (MDMK) from Tamil Nadu, while addressing British parliamentarians of the All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) for Tamils on Wednesday in the British Parliament, said that the British Parliament has a moral responsibility to rectify the historic injustice caused on to the Eezham Tamils during the colonial rule. It was the British who statutorily put the Tamil and the Sinhala territories together in 1833, made Ceylon a unitary entity and refused to consider federalism in their constitutional reforms. When they left in 1948, they passed on the power to the Sinhala majoritarian rulers, he said.
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STF shoots dead 2 youths in Ampaa’rai

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 26 November 2008, 15:15 GMT]
Special Task Force (STF) commandos lying in ambush shot and killed two youths Tuesday around 11:00 p.m while the youths were going along Koamaari-Oora’ni Veethi in Poththuvil police division.
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6 Tamil civilians including 4 in a family shot dead in Batticaloa

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 26 November 2008, 06:27 GMT]
Unidentified gunmen shot and killed the parents, son and daughter Tuesday around 12:30 p.m in Ka’luvaangchchikkudi police division and in a separate shooting unidentified armed men shot and killed a young woman Tuesday around 9:15 p.m in Vaazhaichcheanai police division while unidentified armed men shot and killed a family man Tuesday around 11:00 p.m in Karadiyanaa’ru police division.
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Vanni irrigation bunds close to breach, threaten 10,000 IDPs

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 26 November 2008, 05:03 GMT]
Increasing water levels due to non-stop rain the past five days, and the earth bunds critically weakened to withstand water pressure in several irrigation tanks, including Visuvamadu and Udaiyaarkaddu in Vanni, are posing increasing danger to populated neighborhoods and closeby temporary shelters of internally displaced, civil society sources in Vanni said. More than 10,000 IDPs are being relocated throughout Vanni due to the threat posed by flood waters, according to local officials.
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STF shoots dead 3 TMVP deserters in Batticaloa

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 25 November 2008, 17:13 GMT]
Special Task Force (STF) commandos shot and killed three Tamil youths in a joint cordon and search operation Tuesday around 5:00 p.m in Karaveddi area in Batticaloa police division. The youths are said to be a group TMVP deserters, who escaped from from Mangkikkaddu TMVP camp which was attacked by the Tigers two weeks ago. The STF launched a cordon and search operation following the arrest of a person with gun shot wounds Tuesday around 3:30 p.m Tuesday, the sources added.
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4 youths shot dead in Horowopottana

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 25 November 2008, 17:06 GMT]
Four youths were shot dead at a spot along Anuradhapura-Horowopottana road in the north central province Tuesday afternoon around 2.30, according to media reports in Colombo.
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