Vanni pays homage to Col. Charles

[TamilNet, Sunday, 06 January 2008, 17:08 GMT]
Hundreds of Tamils paid homage Sunday at Puthukkudyrippu in Vanni to the remains of Col. Charles, Head of Liberation Tigers Military Intelligence, killed Saturday evening in a random Claymore attack by Sri Lanka Army Deep Penetration Unit in Pa'l'lamadu in Mannaar, sources in Vanni said. Col. Soosai, Liberation Tigers special commander of the Sea Tigers paid tribute to Col Charles at the event held Sunday around 4:00 p.m in the Heroes Cemetary Hall in Puthukkudiyiruppu, presided by C. Ilamparithi, Puthukkudyiruppu region Political Head of LTTE.
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SLA fortifies key positions in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Sunday, 06 January 2008, 14:36 GMT]
Sri Lanka Army (SLA) troops, deployed in large numbers, are constructing new and permanent sentry points along key roads in Jaffna peninsula since Friday. With the Cease Fire Agreement (CFA) ending on January 16, SLA in Jaffna, fearing attacks by Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), is strengthening security arrangements in the sentry posts and camps, sources in Jaffna said.
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2 SLA killed in Mukamaalai - LTTE

[TamilNet, Sunday, 06 January 2008, 07:58 GMT]
Two Sri Lanka Army soldiers were killed and many wounded when Liberation Tigers of Tamileelam (LTTE) mounted a surprise attack on identified SLA Forward Defence Line positions in Mukamaalai around 8:00 a.m. Sunday, according to LTTE's Northern Front Operations Command.
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JVP noose around APRC neck

[TamilNet, Sunday, 06 January 2008, 02:02 GMT]
While State media continues to provide an air of credibility to the All Party Representative Committee (APRC), insiders revealed to the Sunday Leader that APRC committee has decided to "delay discussing the contentious issues until the end but that they have now reached a deadlock with the JHU and SLFP insisting on a unitary state while the other parties have objected to the use of that terminology." The Sunday Leader further said that while several members have insisted on a set of proposals which goes beyond the 13th Amendment, the JVP has warned that they would topple the government if any proposals resembling a federal formula is forwarded in February.
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LTTE's Head of Military Intelligence killed in Claymore ambush

[TamilNet, Sunday, 06 January 2008, 01:20 GMT]
Col. Charles, Head of Liberation Tigers Military Intelligence, was killed Saturday evening in a random Claymore attack by Sri Lanka Army Deep Penetration Unit in Pa'l'lamadu in Mannaar, LTTE sources in Vanni said. Col. Charles who has been in charge of internal intelligence within the ranks of LTTE ground forces and led an external operations corps as well as a regular combat force that has been deployed in Mannaar district, was killed together with three LTTE lieutenants in the ambush while they were riding in a van between Iluppaikkadavai and Pa'l'lamadu at 3:10 p.m.
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Indian PM's participation in SL independence day not fixed

[TamilNet, Saturday, 05 January 2008, 17:12 GMT]
Sri Lanka's Foreign Minister Rohitha Bogolloagama had to hastily retract on Friday his earlier claim that Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will participate in the 60th Independence Day celebrations of Sri Lanka on February 4, 2008. A few weeks ago, Mr. Bogollagama told Parliament that Sri Lanka had invited Dr. Manmohan Singh to be the chief guest of the independence day function. The information that the dates of Manmohan Singh's proposed visit to Colombo have not been finalized was revealed a day after Bogollagama called the Indian High Commissioner Alok Prasad to inform him about GoSL's decision to abrogate the almost six-year old CFA agreement with the LTTE, informed sources said.
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Kumar Ponnambalam remembered on eighth anniversary

[TamilNet, Saturday, 05 January 2008, 13:33 GMT]
Eighth year anniversary of Kumar Ponnambalam, president of the All Ceylon Tamil Congress, who was shot dead by unidentified gunmen at Wellawatte, a Tamil suburb of the capital Colombo around 11.15 a.m. 5 January 2000, was commemorated in U.K. and in Vanni in simple ceremonies.
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No military solution: Indian External Affairs Minister

[TamilNet, Saturday, 05 January 2008, 13:00 GMT]
Indian External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee ruled out any military solution to the Sri Lankan problem two days after the Government of Sri Lanka (GoSL) formally scrapped the five-year ceasefire with the LTTE. Mr Mukherjee stressed that the solution to the island nation's problem "had to be found through dialogue and discussion" and called upon the Lankan government to address the problem by "fulfilling the legitimate aspirations of the ethnic groups."
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Passenger ship service between Trincomalee-Jaffna to be suspended

[TamilNet, Saturday, 05 January 2008, 11:42 GMT]
The passenger ship service between Trincomalee and Jaffna is to be suspended from January 7 due to repairs to be carried out in the vessel "Green Ocean." The last service from Trincomalee Harbour to Jaffna will take place on January 5 Saturday and from Jaffna to Trincomalee on January 6 Sunday, Trincomalee divisional secretariat sources said.
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Nordic countries regret Colombo's decision to abrogate CFA

[TamilNet, Friday, 04 January 2008, 17:58 GMT]
Foreign Ministers from Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Finland and Iceland, the Nordic countries that took part in the formation of the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission, issued a joint statement on Friday, stating that the withdrawal of the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission from Sri Lanka would mean the end of an important mechanism that protected civilians and which gave a voice to the victims and their families. "The termination of the Ceasefire Agreement will only make it more difficult to find a way back to the negotiating table," the Foreign Ministers of the Nordic countries said in their joint statement regretting the unilateral decision by the GoSL to abrogate the ceasefire.
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STF officer, 2 bodyguards killed in Ampaa'rai ambush - LTTE

[TamilNet, Friday, 04 January 2008, 12:41 GMT]
Liberation Tigers of Tamileelam officials in Ampaa'rai claimed that a Sri Lankan Special Task Force officer and two of his bodyguards were killed in an ambush on their vehicle 15 km west of Poththuvil in Ampaa'rai Friday around 3:00 p.m. Meanwhile, sources in Colombo said one STF Sub Inspector, identified as Herath, was wounded together with four STF commandos in the attack.
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Abrogation of CFA endangers respect for human rights - NPC

[TamilNet, Friday, 04 January 2008, 10:16 GMT]
The GoSL withdrawal from the Ceasefire, resulting in the removal of the role played by the truce monitors, will reduce the flow of credible information to the world outside and deprive the hapless civilians with a credible authority to lodge complaints, said National Peace Council, a Colombo based peace group, on Thursday. Colombo's rejection of a UN Human Rights field presence, the inability of the Commission of Inquiry (COI) and the International Independent Group of Eminent Persons (IIGEP) to make meaningful progress in discharging their mandates, and the recent downgrading of the National Human Rights Commission, combine to place respect for human rights in Sri Lanka in further jeopardy.
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U.N. regrets Colombo's decision to withdraw from CFA

[TamilNet, Friday, 04 January 2008, 10:00 GMT]
The U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon on Thursday said he regretted the decision made by the Government of Sri Lanka to terminate the 2002 Ceasefire Agreement with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). The Secretary-General said he was deeply worried that the withdrawal from the Agreement comes amidst intensifying fighting in the North and increasing violence across the country, including Colombo.
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Silencing Tamil voices, genocidal tactic - Puleedevan

[TamilNet, Thursday, 03 January 2008, 17:31 GMT]
Director of Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) Peace Secretariat, S. Puleedevan, on Thursday charged that the Government of Sri Lanka, locked in a military mindset, has been eliminating Tamil politicians who voiced for Tamil rights, irrespective of their political alignment. Mr. Puleedevan was referring to the slaying of the Colombo Tamil parliamentarian T. Maheswaran of the United National Party on New Year's Day inside a Sivan temple in Colombo.
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SLA advance in Vavuniyaa defeated, 3 SLA killed - LTTE

[TamilNet, Thursday, 03 January 2008, 14:02 GMT]
A ground operation launched by the Sri Lanka Army in Paalamoaddai in Vavuniyaa - Mannaar border area was defeated by the Liberation Tigers of Tamileelam in a clash in which three SLA soldiers were killed and seven wounded. The Tigers have seized military hardware in the clearing operation after the clash. The clash lasted for 40-minutes, LTTE's operations command in Vavuniyaa told media in Ki'linochchi Thursday.
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Sri Lanka withdraws from CFA

[TamilNet, Thursday, 03 January 2008, 11:29 GMT]
Sri Lankan Foreign Minister Rohitha Bogollagama on Thursday evening officially conveyed in writing to the Norwegian Ambassador Tore Hattrem in Colombo that the Government of Sri Lanka (GoSL) was withdrawing from the February 2002 Cease Fire Agreement (CFA). The message was conveyed to the Ambassador at the Sri Lankan Foreign Ministry in Colombo. The CFA formally ends on 16 January, the day after the Tamil festival Thaippongkal. GoSL has also suspended the Status of Mission Agreement (SOMA) with 14-days advance notification.
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2007: The year in review

[TamilNet, Thursday, 03 January 2008, 07:34 GMT]
For the people of the NorthEast, 2007 was a grim year. Sri Lanka’s security forces and allied paramilitaries intensified their campaign of abductions (‘white van’ abductions), torture, and murder of Tamil civilians. Tamil civil society leaders bore the brunt of the counter-insurgency campaign. Jaffna remained an open prison with shortage of essential items, east falling under the Sri Lanka Army (SLA) control with thousands displaced as Colombo concocts colonization schemes to make east a Sinhala majority province.
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Norway regrets Sri Lanka's decision to terminate CFA

[TamilNet, Thursday, 03 January 2008, 03:28 GMT]
Norway's Minister of International Development Erik Solheim, in a press release issued Wednesday, Norway's Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that he regrets that Sri Lanka is taking this serious step, and added that "[T]his comes on top of the increasingly frequent and brutal acts of violence perpetrated by both parties, and I am deeply concerned that the violence and hostilities will now escalate even further."
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2008 will bring clarity to Sri Lanka conflict- Balakumaran

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 02 January 2008, 16:54 GMT]
"The International Community has been vacillating in taking decisive actions on Sri Lanka because they are unable to relate their own interests to the chaotically unfolding political and military situation in Sri Lanka. Only the demonstration of military strength by the Tigers can bring clarity to the situation, for the international community to correctly relate their interests, and assertively engage," said Balakumaran, a Senior Member of Liberation Tigers of Tamileelam, during a Political Analysis program, Nilavaram, in National Television of Tamileelam (NTT), this week.
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Colombo to annul CFA

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 02 January 2008, 15:28 GMT]
Sri Lanka's President and Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces as well as the Minister of Defence, Mahinda Rajapaksa, has decided to annul the February 2002 Ceasefire Agreement (CFA) with the Liberation Tigers of Tamileelam (LTTE). Sri Lankan Government spokesman Keheliya Rambukwela, has confirmed that a cabinet decision to withdraw from the CFA has been taken on Wednesday. But, he did not provide a date for the GoSL withdrawal. The February 2002 agreement, in its paragraph 4.4, specifies that the agreement shall remain in force until notice of termination is given by either Party to the Royal Norwegian Government.
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