Civilians killed by SLA gunfire after bomb blast

[TamilNet, Monday, 09 February 2009, 19:48 GMT]
Reports from Vanni indicate that the civilian casualties at the military checkpost claimed as 'IDP rescue centre' by the Sri Lanka Army (SLA) was in fact due to gunfire at the civilians by the SLA after a bomb blast, according to civilians who escaped the scene back to LTTE territory.
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Pope’s emissary meets detained IDPs in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Monday, 09 February 2009, 10:25 GMT]
Internally displaced persons (IDPs) fleeing war and detained by Sri Lanka Army (SLA) in Kurunakar and Koappaay refugee camps pleaded Pope’s emissary, Rt. Rev. Mario Senario to get them permission to live and engage in their customary occupations, when he personally met them in the said camps, sources in Jaffna said. Bishop Mario Senario who conducted a special mass Sunday at 7:30 a.m in St. Mary’s church in Jaffna at the end of the mass said that he would convey in detail the plight of the Tamils caught in the war in Vanni to the Holy See.
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80 killed, 200 wounded, carnage continues inside 'safe zone'

[TamilNet, Sunday, 08 February 2009, 19:24 GMT]
Sri Lanka Army (SLA) continued indiscriminate barrage of artillery shelling on the 'safety zone' killing more than 80 civilians and causing injuries to 200. Most of the casualties were reported along the roads. Every single shell fired by the SLA was exploding in densely populated civilian area and people were forced to stay inside bunkers. However, as people feared ending up in the hands of the SLA which is close to Chuthanthirapuram, they were fleeing in thousands further into LTTE territory amid shelling, facing deaths and injuries on their way, said TamilNet correspondent in Vanni. According to eyewitness reports, 40 dead bodies of civilians, including children and women, were seen along the 2.5 km stretch of Paranthan Puthukkudiyiruppu Road between Chuthanthirapuram and Theavipuram.
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3000 Tamils protest in Canberra

[TamilNet, Sunday, 08 February 2009, 16:50 GMT]
More than 3000 Tamils from Sydney, Melbourne and Canberra attended a rally at the Lawns of the Parliament House in the Australian capital Canberra on the 5th of February 2009 to raise the deteriorating humanitarian crisis in Vanni, calling the Australian Government to stop the genocide of Tamils in Sri Lanka. The rally was organized by the Australasian Federation of Tamil Associations (AFTA), an umbrella organization representing the Tamil Australians.
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Russia, UK protect Colombo's international impunity

[TamilNet, Sunday, 08 February 2009, 06:00 GMT]
While world powers look apparently condemning Colombo for its culture of impunity allowing armed forces and other elements to commit human rights violations, some among the very powers are engaged covertly in ensuring international impunity to Colombo's war crimes by dodging discussion on Sri Lanka in the apex international security system. During the closed-door meetings of the UN Security Council this week, when Mexico moved for briefing on Sri Lankan situation, Russia reportedly blocked it saying it was not in the agenda. When the British Representative to the UN was asked why Sri Lanka was not in the deliberations, while Sudan was in, the answer was that the situation was entirely different in Sri Lanka where "proscribed" Tamil Tigers were long "blighting" the government and that has to be brought to an end.
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American Tamil youths "starve for peace"

[TamilNet, Sunday, 08 February 2009, 05:24 GMT]
Eight American youths have begun a hunger-strike campaign calling on the United States Congress and the Obama administration to provide relief to the 300,000 Tamil civilians caught up in the war in Vanni. The youths urge members of the diaspora to pledge sacrificing a meal to show solidarity with the campaign, and each pledge, the participants said, will result in e-mail notes delivered to the pledger's Congressional Representatives notifying the suffering of civilians, and urging the congress persons to take immediate action.
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Pope’s emissary visits Jaffna

[TamilNet, Saturday, 07 February 2009, 17:18 GMT]
Representative of the Holy See from Vatican, Bishop Rt. Rev. Mario Senario, is on a visit to Jaffna to meet the displaced Tamils detained in camps in Jaffna and to learn of their situation, Jaffna Bishop’s House sources said. Biship Senario will also discuss the plight of the Tamils caught in war in Vanni. Jaffna Bishop, Rt. Rev. Thomas Saundaranayagam, and Rt. Rev. Mario Senario will also hold jointly a special mass for the safety of the Tamils in Vanni and for permanent peace for the Tamils in Sri Lanka Sunday 7:30 a.m. in St. Mary’s Church, Jaffna, sources added.
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Emergency session of Canadian parliament discusses ceasefire, political solution

[TamilNet, Friday, 06 February 2009, 08:00 GMT]
Amidst demonstration and vigil of thousands of Canadian Eezham Tamils outside, and against the backdrop of Canadian government’s call for ceasefire coupled with 3 million dollars aid to the affected, the Canadian parliament had an emergency debate on the crisis in the island of Sri Lanka Wednesday that lasted four and a half hours. Cutting across party lines members were vocal in stressing the need for immediate ceasefire and federal perspectives of political solution. The balance of the debate was heavily against the Colombo government.
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Civilian sufferings unacceptable – Danish FM

[TamilNet, Friday, 06 February 2009, 06:31 GMT]
“The Danish government, greatly concerned about the situation of the civilians in the conflict areas in North Sri Lanka, is following the situation closely as well as is engaged in exerting pressure on the parties in conflict through institutions including the EU,” Denmark Foreign Minister, Per Stig Møller, said in a report 3 February. Around 4000 Tamils staged a demonstration 4 February starting from Copenhagen Town Hall to the entrance of the Danish Parliament, sources in Copenhagen said.
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U.S. Tamils urge Ambassador Rice to intervene in Sri Lanka

[TamilNet, Thursday, 05 February 2009, 17:01 GMT]
More than 300 Tamils from New York/New Jersey area held a rally Wednesday afternoon in front of the U.S. Mission to U.N. to highlight the plight of Tamil civilians subjected to daily intense artillery attacks in Vanni, and the persistent human rights violations of the Sri Lanka military. The representatives of the awareness rally in a memorandum addressed to U.S. Ambassador to U.N., Susan Rice, noted her "passion and commitment to prevent genocide," and urged U.S. to "take immediate action to halt the genocide against the Tamils."
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IC abandons hope in liberal peace, seeks to live with Sinhala chauvinism - paper

[TamilNet, Thursday, 05 February 2009, 15:53 GMT]
The Co-Chairs statement this week marks the final collapse of the international liberal project in Sri Lanka, the Tamil Guardian newspaper’s editorial said this week. “The international actors who swaggered up in 2001 to make liberal peace in Sri Lanka never had the stomach to take on the Sinhala state's chauvinism. Instead they long pretended it doesn't exist, even as the signs were all around. Now, when it's in their faces, they simply bow to its ferocity - and ask the Tamils to do the same,” the paper said.
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‘Choices limited for the World of Authorities’

[TamilNet, Thursday, 05 February 2009, 15:44 GMT]
“A major problem with the world authorities today is that they live in their own world and try to look at the crisis in the island through their eyes. This is neo-Orientalism,” writes a New Delhi based scholar of South Asian studies in response to the recent stand of Tokyo Co-chairs. The way the world authorities have been grooming the situation in the island of Sri Lanka, they have narrowed down their choices. Either they have to separate the two ethnicities deeply divided by a protracted war by accepting the two nation states in the island, or allow the Sinhala nation’s attempt of genocide and total annihilation of Tamil identity, facing consequences of protracted turmoil coupled with global Tamil backfire. It is for the world authorities to decide whether their interests in Colombo are that worthy or important, he writes.
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Hospital attacked, 7 killed, dozens wounded

[TamilNet, Thursday, 05 February 2009, 09:42 GMT]
The only remaining hospital in Udaiyaarkaddu within the so-called safe zone has again come under heavy shelling by the Sri Lanka Army on Thursday. At least 7 civilians were killed and 27 wounded in the close vicinity of the makeshift hospital functioning at a school. 2 ambulances were destroyed and the medical store of the hospital has been completely destroyed. The attack comes a day after US Foreign Secretary Hillary Clinton and British Foreign Secretary David Miliband urging the warring parties not to fire out of or into the safe zone and in the vicinity of Puthukkudiyiruppu (PTK) hospital or any other medical structure.
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Anonymous organization upbraids dailies in Jaffna peninsula

[TamilNet, Thursday, 05 February 2009, 01:23 GMT]
An anonymus organization, calling itself, ’Theasa Makkal Ezhuchchip Pearavai’ (Nation’s People’s Form of Uprisal’), called on the dailies of Jaffna peninsula to uphold journalistic moral instead of submitting themselves to be influenced by the culture of arms, in a fax message sent to the media in Jaffna Wednesday.
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Government party paramilitary men threaten Tamil daily editors in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Thursday, 05 February 2009, 00:06 GMT]
Paramilitary men of a Tamil political party that is a member of the ruling United Peoples Freedom Alliance (UPFA) government of Sri Lanka threatened the editorial staff of the two Tamil dailies published in Jaffna for not giving prominence for the news related to their party activities or the reports issued by their party leader, according to the complaint made by the editorial staff to the Joint Media Association in Colombo, sources in Colombo said.
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Deliberate massacre, not 'crossfire' killing Tamil civilians - MP

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 04 February 2009, 18:33 GMT]
Criticising international media reports for suggesting Tamil civilians are caught in a ‘crossfire’, TNA MP for Vanni S. Kanagratnam Wednesday said the Sri Lanka Army was shelling deep into Tamil Tiger controlled territory and deliberately targeting hospitals and internally displaced people. “Scores of Tamil civilians are being killed every day. But the civilian victims are not on or near the frontline as some international media is reporting. These people, inside safety zone, away from the frontline and they are being deliberately targeted by the Sri Lankan military,” he said.
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Delhi based human rights centre condemns Tokyo Co-chair stand

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 04 February 2009, 15:46 GMT]
Asian Centre for Human Rights (ACHR), a New Delhi-based human rights watchdog headed by Suhas Chakma, in a statement issued on Wednesday said the Tokyo Co-chairs (Norway, Japan, USA, EU), instead of mediating between government of Sri Lanka and the LTTE to declare indefinite cease-fire, have failed to reflect the ground situations and remained silent on the need for ensuring respect for the laws of war. The ACHR on Wednesday issued a review titled "Mullaitivu Vs Gaza: The Tokyo Co-Chairs fail on the responsibility to protect".
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Sri Lanka's scorched earth offensive must be stopped - Boston Globe

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 04 February 2009, 12:41 GMT]
Pointing out that "the shelling of a hospital pediatric ward Sunday in Sri Lanka gave the world a glimpse of the scorched-earth offensive Sri Lanka's government has been conducting against the secessionist Tamil Tigers," the Boston Globe, in an editorial that appeared Wednesday, said the "war has to stop," and Obama administration ought to ask for a United Nations Security Council resolution calling for a cease-fire, and the Asian powers providing military assistance to Sri Lanka - China, India, and Pakistan - should exert their influence on the government to halt the shooting." The globe reiterated its long standing position that "[t]he only true solution must be political: some form of confederal autonomy for the Tamil regions."
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65 Vanni patients transferred to Mannaar, relatives languish in internment camp

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 03 February 2009, 20:43 GMT]
Sixty-five seriously wounded patients brought to Vavuniyaa by the ICRC last week have been transferred to Mannaar hospital and admitted there under strict military surveillance, medical sources in Mannaar said. Meanwhile, twelve relatives of the patients, who accompanied them from Vanni to provide care and separated by the SLA at Oamanthai, are still languishing at Nelullku'lam internment camp. The patients in Mannaar, most of them young children and elderly, who have lost either both legs or both hands and need personal care by close family members, have urged the authorities to allow their relatives to be with them as initially facilitated by the ICRC.
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SLAF personnel being trained in Tamil Nadu

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 03 February 2009, 18:13 GMT]
Eight pilots of the Sri Lankan Air Force (SLAF) are presently undergoing training at the Indian Air Force base at Thaamparam (Tambaram) near Chennai in Tamil Nadu, highly placed sources told TamilNet. News of this training spread like wildfire when the Sri Lankan Airforce personnel were taken Monday to the Chealaiyoor (Selaiyur) police-station for visa verification purposes. "People of Tamil Nadu need no further proof that this war of decimating Tamils in Sri Lanka is being undertaken at India's insistence and instructions. This confirms our fears that Indian troops have also been sent to fight there," a veteran Tamil activist told TamilNet.
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