What prevents Akashi and his ilk reaching out to people in need, asks IDP activist

[TamilNet, Monday, 26 January 2009, 03:48 GMT]
"The Colombo government has claimed that its forces have captured the 'last LTTE town', Mullaiththeevu. Its Army commander has said that 95% of the war is over. Therefore the LTTE must now be powerless in controlling the movement of civilians. But the people every time demonstrate their shudder at the thought of getting into the hands of the invading army and pull themselves into pockets further and further. In such a situation it is nothing but mischief for the visiting Japanese Envoy Yasushi Akashi to talk about the LTTE using civilians as human shield and The Hindu to highlight it," said an IDP activist from Vanni.
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SLA shelling kills 22 civilians, wounds 60, targets humanitarian supply centre

[TamilNet, Sunday, 25 January 2009, 19:13 GMT]
Sri Lanka Army (SLA) has continued artillery shelling on densely populated 'safety zone,' in Chuthanthirapuram, Udaiyaarkaddu and Thearaavil in Visuvamadu throughout Sunday, at least twice attacking the vicinity of the supply centre, located at Chuthanthirapuram playground, the only centre in Vanni where humanitarian supplies brought in by the UN World Food Programme are distributed. Two shells exploded in the premises, killing five members of a single family of Mr. Jegatheeswaran, owner of a saloon displaced from Visuvamadu. Five more civilians, including children and women, were also killed. Body parts were scattered across the locality and not all of them could be identified, according to medical sources. At least 13 civilians were wounded at the site.
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Delhi students on hunger strike to protest Colombo's war

[TamilNet, Saturday, 24 January 2009, 13:33 GMT]
Students from different universities and colleges in New Delhi, joined by lawyers, teachers and human rights activists held a one day hunger strike Saturday expressing solidarity with Tamil people in Vanni, and protesting against the "onslaught on Tamil people in a unilateral war declared by the Sri Lanka military with a tacit understanding of the Indian Government," organizers of the event said.
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‘Stop killing innocent Tamils in Vanni immediately’ - Jaffna University students

[TamilNet, Saturday, 24 January 2009, 11:10 GMT]
“The indiscriminate killings of innocent Tamils in Vanni by Sri Lanka Army (SLA) shelling and Sri Lanka Air Force (SLAF) bombings should be stopped at once and all members of Jaffna University Student Union (JUSU) will boycott lectures Monday to give weight to our demands. Our union seeks the support of the people of Jaffna peninsula in our struggle,” JUSU said in a media announcement Saturday. JUSU intends to expand the struggle by bringing the activities of Jaffna University administration to a halt to achieve the demands, the release further said.
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Human chain protest demonstration in Paris

[TamilNet, Saturday, 24 January 2009, 08:07 GMT]
More than 4000 Tamil men, women and students, braving cold weather, held hands forming a human chain, expressed their concern and support for the Tamils in Vanni being continuously attacked by Sri Lanka Armed Forces, Friday from 5:00 p.m to 6:30 p.m along the St. Antony, one of the main avenues in La Chapelle, Paris.
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American Tamils urge India to intervene in Sri Lanka

[TamilNet, Saturday, 24 January 2009, 02:37 GMT]
More than three hundred American Tamils demonstrated in front of the Indian Embassy in Washington D.C. Friday between 12:00 noon and 2:30 p.m. to express solidarity with Eelam Tamils, and called upon India to intervene in Sri Lanka on humanitarian grounds to initiate peace talks, halt military assistance to Sri Lanka, and to recognize the Tamils right to self-determination. The demonstrators later assembled near the U.S. State Department to show their support to the new Obama Administration, organizers of the event said.
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Norwegian Tamils demonstrate in front of Japan Embassy in Oslo

[TamilNet, Friday, 23 January 2009, 12:18 GMT]
Nearly 200 Norwegian Tamils of Norwegian Tamil Federation (NTF) demonstrated Thursday between 2:00 p.m and 3:00 p.m in front of the Japanese Embassy, located on Wergekands veien, 15 in Oslo, urging Japan, one of the co-chair countries, to exert pressure on Sri Lanka to stop the genocidal war waged on the Tamils in Vanni, sources in Oslo said. An official of the Japan Embassy accepted the memorandum submitted by NTF.
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Tamil Nadu gears up for more protests

[TamilNet, Friday, 23 January 2009, 05:27 GMT]
A state-wide common front of college and university students' organisations in Tamil Nadu launched protests against New Delhi and the state government demanding immediate action in stopping the war, which seeks to subjugate Tamil people who have refused to surrender into the hands of the Sri Lanka Army despite the physical and psychological war on them. 200,000 students took part in the 32 districts of the state on Wednesday, according to Dr. Vengadachalam, the organisor of the College Students' Coordinating Committee, a newly formed alliance of the students' organisations.
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Stop calling genocide a war on terrorism

[TamilNet, Friday, 23 January 2009, 02:55 GMT]
India and the so-called international community continue to demonstrate with adamancy and arrogance that they have no interest in stopping the genocide of Tamils in the island of Sri Lanka but they would rather abet it in the name of war on terrorism. The people of Tamil Nadu and the Tamil diaspora all over the world should realize that these elements are not going to listen to pleading, but will respond only when their interests are at stake. It is time that demonstrations are to be directed against them with a clear message that their strategic and economic interests will definitely be at stake by losing popular trust if they continue to play the malevolent game with the lives of Tamils, says the gist of a volume of opinion mails received by TamilNet.
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Swiss Tamil youth demonstrate in front of UN

[TamilNet, Friday, 23 January 2009, 00:01 GMT]
Tamils living in Switzerland marched from the Geneva Main Railway station to the United Nations Wednesday evening urging the international community to stop the genocidal war on the Tamils in Vanni in the island of Sri Lanka and to apply pressure on the Government of Sri Lanka to bring about an immediate cease fire.
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Urgent medical transport facilitated after 14 days

[TamilNet, Thursday, 22 January 2009, 13:36 GMT]
Nearly after 2 weeks, on Thursday ICRC escorted 44 civilians in 5 ambulances and buses to Vavuniyaa for medical treatments, initial reports from Vanni said. More than 50 civilians have been waiting for medical transport for the past two weeks and a child with head injuries died at Puthukkudiyiruppu hospital as the needed medical transport to Vavuniyaa hospital was not available.
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Sri Lankan fighter jet reported missing in Northern frontier

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 21 January 2009, 15:55 GMT]
A Sri Lanka Air Force (SLAF) MIG fighter jet was shot in the skies over Vanni on Wednesday, according to initial reports from journalists outside Sri Lanka, who cited a highly placed source in Vanni Sri Lankan Forces Headquarters (Vanni SF-HQ). The Liberation Tigers of Tamileelam (LTTE) officials were not available to comment on the reports.
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IC urged to act on humanitarian grounds to safeguard civilians

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 21 January 2009, 12:45 GMT]
Sri Lanka Army (SLA) has cornered civilians in overcrowded areas in the suburbs of Puthukkudiyiruppu (PTK) town, according to sources in Vanni. While artillery shells exploding in densely populated makeshift settlements have caused several civilian casualties, civilians are fleeing from indiscriminate bombardment from air and ground are forced to seek shelters throughout the day, civil sources from Vanni said. IDPs' representatives express fear that those who fall into the hands of SLA units are likely to be forcibly transported under close military supervision to detention centre style camps at locations isolated from mainstream communities, as evidenced in Mannaar and in areas north of the recently SLA-occupied Elephant Pass.
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Unprecedented civilian carnage in Vanni

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 20 January 2009, 18:44 GMT]
Fifteen civilians including 5 children were killed and 29 seriously injured in the relentless artillery barrage that Sri Lanka Amy (SLA) kept pounding the internally displaced persons (IDPs) in Visuvamadu, Udaiyaarkaddu, Chuthanthirapuram and Maa'nikkapuram areas in Mullaiththeevu district Tuesday, sources in Vanni said. SLA continued its artillery barrage on the IDP settlements Monday from 11:00 a.m till 12:30 p.m in Chuthanthirapuram and Theavipuram areas in Vanni killing two IDPs and seriously injuring nine including children.
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'Lives lost yielding nothing to Colombo'

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 20 January 2009, 17:59 GMT]
"It is not a question of whether Tamil Eelam will become independent. Rather, it is a question of how many lives, on both sides of the Tamil Eelam border, the Sinhala regime(s) are prepared to waste in the process," writes a reader, Mr. Poulson, in response to TamilNet's call for opinion last week. "The Sinhala polity is not interested in a ceasefire and nor are the strategic partners. Hence it must be forced upon them," he writes further in his situation analysis.
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Norwegian Tamils demonstrate in front of US Embassy in Oslo

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 20 January 2009, 11:27 GMT]
Around 400 Norwegian Tamils gathered in front of United States Embassy in Oslo, Tuesday between 9:30 a.m and 10:30 a.m urging the U.S. Government to help stop the genocidal war on the Tamils in Vanni in Sri Lanka and to exert pressure on Sri Lanka Government to bring about an immediate cease fire. This is the fourth demonstration organized by Norwegian Tamils Federation within the last two weeks, sources in Oslo said. A representative of the American Embassy received the memorandum submitted by the demonstrators.
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'Madaraasi Madam' on Eezham Tamils: comments of a Tamil journalist

[TamilNet, Sunday, 18 January 2009, 19:29 GMT]
The Tamil Nadu opposition leader Ms. Jeyalalithaa, in an interview reported by BBC on Saturday, has said that it is wrong to call the Tamils of the island of Sri Lanka as Eezhath Thamizhar, because there is no country at present called Eezham. In her opinion the right term is Ilangkaith Thamizhar. What is explicit in the statement of this leader who was made a Chief Minister twice by the people of Tamil Nadu as leader of a political party having a Dravidian label that doesn’t stand for any people at present, is her heartbeat of desire not exactly to see the elimination of the LTTE, but to see the nullification of the nationalism of Eezham Tamils inclusive of all its symbols, writes a Tamil journalist based in Chennai.
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Vanni civilians under deadly siege

[TamilNet, Sunday, 18 January 2009, 17:50 GMT]
"There are no words to describe the plight of the civilians who say that they prefer to face death on the spot rather than succumbing to serious injuries or ending up in the hands of the invading Sri Lankan forces, which many of them regard as genocidal military and fear that their young men and women would be 'filtered' away, tortured or killed by it," reports TamilNet correspondent from an outskirt of Puthukkudiyiruppu (PTK) Sunday evening amid artillery fire.
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9000 British Tamils gather in protest against war on Tamils in Vanni

[TamilNet, Sunday, 18 January 2009, 14:45 GMT]
More than 9000 British Tamils gathered Saturday in front of No. 10 Downing Street in London participating in a mass vigil from 3:00 p.m till 7:00 p.m, urging British Prime Minister Gordon Brown to exert pressure on the governments of Sri Lanka and India to call for an immediate ceasefire in Sri Lanka. This event marks the third of the ‘Awareness Campaign’ organized by the Tamil Youth Organization (TYO) in United Kingdom.
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Ramdoss exhorts Karunanidhi to urgent action in stopping Sri Lanka war

[TamilNet, Saturday, 17 January 2009, 21:08 GMT]
Pattali Makkal Katchi (PMK) leader Dr S Ramadoss, who visited VCK leader Thol Thirumavalavan, now in his fourth day of a fast-unto-death over the humanitarian crisis imposed on Tamil civilians by Sri Lanka’s punitive bombardments, exhorted Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Kalaignar M. Karunanidhi to act urgently to invoke Indian intervention to stop the war. Emphatically refuting Mr. Karunanidhi's statement that the VCK leader had “unilaterally decided” to stage a protest fast without consulting the rest of the Tamil Nadu polity, Dr. Ramadoss said Thol Thirumavalavan, whose health is detoriarating, had consulted other leaders several times in the recent weeks.
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