Defining moment for IC's credibility - Norwegian Tamil Forum

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 30 September 2008, 13:19 GMT]
"The defining moment for the International Community is right now, if it really wishes to establish its commitment to a principled approach towards Tamil aspirations in the island of Sri Lanka," declared a Norwegian Tamil representative on Tuesday, while concluding a fasting awareness campaign, held for more than 30 hours in front of the Norwegian Parliament in Oslo, focusing on the plight of 230,000 internally displaced Tamil civilians in Vanni.
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15,000 newly displaced from Ki'linochchi swell Vanni IDPs to 230,000

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 30 September 2008, 13:03 GMT]
Tamils Rehabilitation Organization (TRO), a humanitarian organization helping the displaced population in Northeast, in a report released Tuesday said, with the food stock in private stores and co-operative stores reaching dangerously low levels, the humanitarian conditions of the more than 230,000 Internally displaced are rapidly deteriorating. Since the departure of foreign NGOs on 16th September under Colombo's directives, 15,217 new IDPs from Ki'linochchi and Poonakari has joined the refugee population, the report added.
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LTTE: SL military post raided in Trincomalee, 4 killed

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 30 September 2008, 08:31 GMT]
Four Sri Lankan military personnel, including Sri Lanka Army (SLA) and homeguards, who were manning a military post in Kantha'laay (Kantale) in Trincomalee district were killed Monday morning when Liberation Tigers of Tamileelam (LTTE) carried out a raid on the military post in the high security area, LTTE's Trincomalee command has claimed in a note issued to media on Tuesday. Two firearms were seized in the raid, the Tigers said.
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Canadian Tamil youth campaign for IDPs in Vanni

[TamilNet, Monday, 29 September 2008, 13:55 GMT]
35 Canadian Tamil youths on Friday launched a fasting campaign named '30 Hour Famine' at the Richmond Hill Temple community hall in the province of Ontario in an effort to create awareness regarding the sufferings of the displaced civilians deprived of basic amenities in Vanni, whose plight has worsened after the Sri Lankan government ordered the International NGOs and UN agencies to withdraw aid workers from the region.
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British statement fails to condemn Sri Lanka - BTF

[TamilNet, Sunday, 28 September 2008, 10:43 GMT]
The Tamils in UK feel confused by a British statement that acknowledges the apparent recognition by the GoSL of its responsibility to provide humanitarian assistance to civilians affected by the conflict and its continued co-ordination with humanitarian agencies, at a time when foreign aid workers of the UN and International Non-Governmental Organisations have been expelled from Vanni by the government of Sri Lanka, said a statement issued by the British Tamils Forum (BTF) on Saturday.
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Ethnocentric military dictatorship in the making in Colombo - Vanni MP

[TamilNet, Sunday, 28 September 2008, 09:47 GMT]
Tamil National Alliance parliamentarian for Vanni, Selvam Adaikkalanathan, who blamed Sri Lanka Army commander Lt. Gen. Sarath Fonseka for his Sinhala ethnocentric comments to a Canadian paper, said Sunday that the Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa, as Commander-in-Chief and the Executive President, should instruct the SLA commander to apologise for the statement. Fonseka's statement not only undermined democracy by justifying an ethnic majoritarian rule in the island of Sri Lanka, but also alluded that a military dictatorship was in the making in Colombo, he said. Meanwhile, Rauff Hakim, the leader of the Sri Lanka Muslim Congress, also blamed that the "attack on the minorities " by the SLA commander "bordered on racism."
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Protests in Tamil Nadu gain momentum, Jayalalithaa extends support

[TamilNet, Sunday, 28 September 2008, 00:50 GMT]
In a significant move amid the building momentum in Tamil Nadu where Tamil leaders are voicing their support to the Eezham Tamils as the Sri Lankan forces intensified their attacks on Vanni, the former Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu and the Leader of All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, J. Jayalalithaa, Saturday extended her support to a fasting campaign being organised by the Communist Party of India (CPI). In a letter to D. Pandyan, the general secretary of the CPI in Tamil Nadu, Ms. Jayalalithaa said her party extended wholehearted support to the success of the campaign, which highlights the problems and urges to safeguard the lives, properties and the rights of the Tamils in Sri Lanka.
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IDP wounded in Sri Lankan air attack in Visuvamadu

[TamilNet, Friday, 26 September 2008, 10:57 GMT]
Sri Lanka Air Force (SLAF) bombers attacked a civilian settlement at Thearaavil in Visvuvamadu Friday between 1:50 p.m. and 2:10 p.m. Friday. A 35-year-old father of one child was wounded in the indiscriminate bombardment. The victim is an Internally Displaced Person from Kaaraitheevu (Kaarainakar) of Jaffna.
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Kaaththaankudi police arrest 17 Tamil civilians

[TamilNet, Thursday, 25 September 2008, 17:13 GMT]
Kaaththaankudi police arrested seventeen persons on suspicion in a joint cordon and search operation launched by police, Special Task Force (STF) commandos, and Sri Lanka Army (SLA) Wednesday afternoon around 4:00 p.m. in Aaraiyampathi Murukan Koayil area, in Batticaloa district, sources in Batticaloa said.
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Eezham Thamizh and Tamil Eelam: Understanding the terminologies of identity

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 23 September 2008, 00:43 GMT]
Many readers, Tamils as well as non-Tamils, wonder at the way words and phrases such as Eezham, Thamizh, Eezham Tamil or Eezham Thamizh, Tamil Eelam or Thamizh Eezham, Sinhala, Sri Lanka, Sri Lankan etc., are presented today in the media and the connotations implied by them. Culture Columnist Akazhaan discusses the etymology, historical linguistics and sociolinguistics of these terms in the context of the Tamil and Sinhala national questions in the island known as Sri Lanka today.
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Jaffna Catholics stage peace rally

[TamilNet, Monday, 22 September 2008, 10:13 GMT]
More than two thousand Catholics from different areas of Jaffna peninsula, heeding the call by Commission for Justice and Peace (CJP) of the Catholic diocese of Jaffna to mark the International Peace Day, assembled at the respective parish churches Sunday early morning before proceeding in a prayer procession towards Manippaay St.Anthony's church.
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Heavy fighting continues in Ki'linochchi district

[TamilNet, Sunday, 21 September 2008, 18:15 GMT]
Heavy fighting, which erupted in the southwest frontiers of Ki'linochchi district on Sunday continued amid heavy artillery fire throughout the day. Sri Lanka Air Force (SLAF) bombers were observed over Vanneari area three times and at least two airstrikes were witnessed by the residents of the district. Meanwhile, two artillery shells exploded near A9 highway around 1:00 p.m.
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Crisis unfolding in Ki'linochchi - Human Rights Secretariat

[TamilNet, Saturday, 20 September 2008, 16:56 GMT]
The better off among the newly displacing Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) in Ki'linochchi have gone to the extreme of dismantling their homes so that they can setup a home in due course in new place. The sight of Ki'linochchi streets with roofless, doorless homes tells the sad tale of the IDPs who once lived in them, said North East Secretariat on Human Rights (NESoHR) on Saturday. Meanwhile, the United Nations office of the Resident / Humanitarian Coordinator in Colombo, in a press statement issued on Saturday, said it was seriously concerned by theft from its Ki'linochchi offices on Thursday and Friday nights and said it has brought this to the attention of the Liberation Tigers of Tamileelam (LTTE).
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Tamil diaspora representatives condemn International System Failure in Sri Lanka

[TamilNet, Saturday, 20 September 2008, 14:45 GMT]
"First was its failure to stop state human rights abuses in Sri Lanka; second was its inability to inspire a political solution in lieu of military solution; third was succumbing to government pressure in withdrawing International Agencies, and now, sitting with crossed fingers for the impending genocide and bloodbath, yet backing the failed state of Sri Lanka. What is the message the International System is trying to give to the people of the world in the test case of the Tamil crisis in Sri Lanka," asks Rev. Fr. F.C. Inpanathan, who was one of the diaspora representatives of a delegation that met Norwegian Special Envoy Jon Hanssen-Bauer on Friday. "Does State Terrorism being replaced by System Terrorism?" he further questions.
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Fuel shortage threatens provision of drinking water in Vanni

[TamilNet, Saturday, 20 September 2008, 10:45 GMT]
Sri Lanka's Ministry of Defence (MoD) has instructed the Sri Lanka Army (SLA) not to allow Humanitarian Convoys to the Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) Ki'linochchi district with food items provided under the United Nations World Food Programme, as a "punishment" for the people of Ki'linochhci district for not "obeying" its instruction to leave Ki'linochhi to Vavuniyaa, according to an official attached to Vavuniyaa District Secretariat. Meanwhile, North East Secretariat on Human Rights (NESoHR) in a press statement issued on Saturday said fuel shortage has severely affected the provision of drinking water to the internally displaced civilians.
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ICRC relocates in Ki'linochchi

[TamilNet, Thursday, 18 September 2008, 15:23 GMT]
The residential office of the International Committee of Red Cross (ICRC) in Ki'linochchi has relocated to Iraththinapuram, a suburb of Ki'linochchi town, from Ira'naimadu junction after Sri Lanka Army (SLA) fired artillery shells began to reach 155 Mile Post, which is located on A9 between Ki'linochchi town and Ira'naimadu Junction.
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Fresh SLA advance repulsed in Vannearikku'lam - LTTE

[TamilNet, Thursday, 18 September 2008, 11:32 GMT]
The Sri Lanka Army (SLA), which launched a fresh attempt to advance in Vannearikku'lam on Thursday suffered heavy casualties as the Tigers repulsed the move after heavy fighting that lasted for almost four hours, LTTE military officials in Vanni told TamilNet claiming that 25 SLA soldiers were killed in the fighting and more than 40 wounded. Two dead bodies of SLA soldiers were recovered and the Tigers have seized arms and ammunitions from the battlefield. Meanwhile, Sri Lankan military officials in Colombo claimed that their forces were engaged in a 3-hour sea battle from 11:30 a.m. with the LTTE Sea Tigers in the seas off Naachchikkudaa, claiming an equal number of casualties on LTTE side.
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Principal reported missing, one seek refuge with Jaffna HRC

[TamilNet, Thursday, 18 September 2008, 09:38 GMT]
The principal of Va'l'luvarpuram Paarathi Viththiyaalayam in Visuvamadu in Liberation Tigers of Eelam (LTTE) held area of Vanni, has been reported missing since 08 August, according to complaint lodged with the Human Rights Commission in Jaffna by his wife.
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Ambulance escapes Claymore blast on A9

[TamilNet, Thursday, 18 September 2008, 08:18 GMT]
An ambulance returning fro Oamanthai exit point narrowly escaped from a Claymore explosion Wednesday evening in Kokkaavil on A9 road. Tamileelam Police officials in Vanni blamed that the SLA has deployed DPU infiltration teams with the instruction to disturb the movement of Internall Displaced People and the fundamental services such as humanitarian supplies and medical transport on A9, the only access route to Vanni.
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SLA blocks humanitarian supplies to Vanni

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 17 September 2008, 15:25 GMT]
The Sri Lanka Army (SLA) in Vavunkyaa turned away Wednesday fifteen lorries carrying humanitarian supplies to the Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) in Ki'linochchi district. Officials attached to the Ki'linochchi GA office said the sudden blocking by the SLA of the much needed medicine and essential supplies, which were already delayed for weeks, would affect thousands as many more civlians were being made IDPs in the district.
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