Sri Lanka Police questions TNA MP

[TamilNet, Saturday, 23 May 2009, 16:29 GMT]
Tamil National Alliance (TNA) parliamentarian, Mr.S.Kanagaretnam, was taken for questioning by the Sri Lanka police from Chettikulam internment camp Thursday morning, sources in Vavuniyaa said. Kanagaratnam arrived with his family from Mu'l'li-vaaykkaal area to Omanthai with IDPs when the military operation of the Sri Lanka Army (SLA) forced the IDPs from the Safety Zone.
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Ban Ki Moon stresses freedom of movement, resettlement of IDPs

[TamilNet, Saturday, 23 May 2009, 11:09 GMT]
United Nation Secretary General, Ban Ki Moon, while visiting the largest internment camp in Vavuniyaa, Manik Farm, Saturday for three hours from 9:15 a.m., stressed the need for freedom of movement and immediate resettlement of the more than 300,000 Tamils held in camps. The IDPs also told Ban Ki Moon that they would want the U.N. to take full responsibility for the welfare of the refugees, sources accompanying Moon on his visit said. "The UN has failed in several measures in preventing egregious human rights violations by Sri Lanka against unarmed civilian Tamils during the last several months, and this is the last opportunity to take bold action to repair the damage to UN's reputation. UN should shed its rhetoric on sovereignty and assume full responsibility for the Tamil people," an aid worker told TamilNet after Moon's visit.
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Blake leaves Sri Lanka pondering war crimes

[TamilNet, Thursday, 21 May 2009, 10:00 GMT]
Calling for increased access so the international community could make a decision on war crimes, the outgoing US Ambassador to Sri Lanka gave a final press conference on Wednesday before his departure from the country.
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Lies, deceptions, hallmark of Sri Lanka war- Telegraph

[TamilNet, Monday, 18 May 2009, 11:14 GMT]
"Chinese weapons, Indian intelligence, Sinhala Armed personals and racist Sri Lankan leaders came together to perform one of the most cruel war that has cost the lives of many thousands innocents," says Richard Dixon, a columnist in London's Telegraph. While "Tamils all over the world are mourning the death of their loved ones back home," and "[b]irds have now stopped singing in a land called Vanni," Dixon writes, "[l]eaders of Sri Lanka and some responsible officers in the UN, should be questioned in international courts in order to find out if they were responsible for the deaths of innocent Tamils."
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UN genocide expert wants ceasefire, UN investigators want war probes

[TamilNet, Saturday, 16 May 2009, 03:26 GMT]
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s Special Adviser on the prevention of genocide, underscoring the toll the clashes are taking on Tamil civilians, said Friday that “it is not too late” for the government of Sri Lanka and the LTTE to end the conflict. Francis Deng called for both sides to “pursue a reconciliatory and peaceful path with the ethnic Tamil population.” Three UN special investigators have now called for an independent inquiry into the conduct of the Sri Lankan conflict. Meanwhile, Walter Kälin, the Secretary-General’s Representative for the Human Rights of Displaced Persons called on Colombo to allow the UN and other agencies “full and unfettered access to all civilians and detainees.”
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Champoor families return to shelters in Ki'liveddi transit camp

[TamilNet, Friday, 15 May 2009, 11:27 GMT]
231 members of 57 Tamil families, who were displaced from their traditional villages in Moothoor division in Trincomalee district in 2006 military operation launched by the Sri Lanka Army (SLA), were transported in 10 buses of the State Transport Board on Thursday via Vaakarai from Batticaloa district where they had been sheltered in welfare centres for resettlement. IDP families of Champoor and Chanthoasapuram in Moothoor east division have been sheltered in Ki'liveddi transit camp. This was in accordance of "their wish," rehabilitation officials said.
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61 Vanni elderly IDPs buried in one mass-pit in Vavuniyaa

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 13 May 2009, 11:21 GMT]
Bodies of sixty one elderly Internally Displaced (IDPs) kept in the mortuary of the Vavuniyaa General Hospital were buried in a single mass-pit in general cemetery located in Poonthooddam Monday evening. All of those buried died due to natural causes in welfare centres where large numbers of IDPs who fled from the war from Vanni are sheltered.
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Intervene in the name of humanity: Pathmathan calls on IC

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 13 May 2009, 09:20 GMT]
"Every passing day is resulting in the loss of countless number of civilian lives and alienation of the entire Tamil community," said Selvaraja Pathmanathan, the LTTE plenipotentiary for international relations, in a statement issued on Wednesday, and called on the International Community for its urgent and immediate intervention, not based on territorial or geo-political ambitions, but based on basic human values. "It is our firm view that a cessation of all hostilities would be the only mechanism that would prevent further civilian carnage and we remain committed to an immediate and permanent ceasefire."
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Vanni elderly IDPs die in Vavuniyaa

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 12 May 2009, 16:11 GMT]
The number of deaths among elderly persons in Vavuniyaa IDP camp is on the increase. From May 1 till May 11, sixty-one elderly persons had died due to natural causes. Their bodies have been lying in the mortuary of the Vavuniyaa general hospital awaiting relatives to identify them, sources in Vavuniyaa said.
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Aid workers tell donors not to fund Sri Lanka, reports Channel-4's Walsh

[TamilNet, Sunday, 10 May 2009, 21:14 GMT]
"This is a man-made humanitarian disaster, the aid worker explained. "I am in the strange position of just keep telling all our donors when they come here to NOT to give money,"" writes Channel-4's Nick Paton Walsh, quoting an aid worker inside an internment camp in Vavuniyaa. The Channel-4 crew was deported on the directions of Sri Lanka's Defense Secretary Gotabaya Rajapakse for reporting allegations of abuse, rape, and ill-treatment of Tamils held in internment camps.
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LTTE urges IC to act in the international way

[TamilNet, Sunday, 10 May 2009, 07:55 GMT]
"More than 2,000 innocent civilians have been killed in the last 24 hours. The wholesale bombardment by Sri Lankan planes and shelling on a densely populated, non combatant civilian safe zone is state terrorism and a war crime," said S. Pathmanathan, the LTTE head of international relations on Sunday. "The Tamil people are dismayed that the United Nations and the International Community have failed in their obligations to protect the endangered civilians. [...] We only ask for an impartial relief effort similar to those extended to other international conflict zones by the UN and the international community in the recent past," he further said.
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Deaths of elderly Vanni IDPs increase in Vavuniyaa

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 06 May 2009, 13:44 GMT]
Death toll of elderly persons displaced from Vanni due to military operations and held in detention centres in Vavuniyaa is on the increase, sources in Vavuniyaa said. On Monday alone ten elderly persons died in detention centers located in Vavuniyaa and their bodies had been handed over to the Vavuniyaa general hospital, the sources added.
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Tamil IDP abducted in Moothoor

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 05 May 2009, 15:44 GMT]
Unidentified armed men entering Ki’liveddi Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) welfare centre in Moothoor division in Trincomalee district Saturday night forcibly took away a man in the centre amid protests by fellow IDPs, sources in Moothoor said. The IDPs, displaced due to Sri Lanka Army (SLA) offensives, have been waiting for resettlement in their own villages.
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LTTE urges UK, French Foreign ministers to continue initiatives

[TamilNet, Saturday, 02 May 2009, 17:59 GMT]
The LTTE’s Head of the Political Division on Saturday appreciated the attempts of the UK and French foreign ministers for visiting Colombo to address the dire humanitarian crisis faced by the Tamil people. In his letter to the ministers, the LTTE political head clarified the situation of IDPs in LTTE control areas in Vanni and invited international monitors to assess the civilian situation. Further, he concurred with the Foreign Ministers’ assessment of the situation by stating that ‘Should the Sri Lankan regime be permitted to continue with its ultimate objective of imposing a ‘final solution’ through military means, we have no doubt that it will destabilize the region’.
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Satellite images reveal SLA shelling damages to Safe Zone

[TamilNet, Thursday, 30 April 2009, 11:01 GMT]
A report by United Nations Institute for Training and Reseach (UNITAR) surfaced on April 27th confirmed the heavy use of artillery and aerial bombing of civilian safety zone (CSZ) by the Sri Lankan armed forces. The 10-page document, initially made public, was later blocked by UNITAR for preventing incriminating evidence of Sri Lanka Army (SLA) shelling of civilian areas. Several organizations, including Inner City Press, however, have archived a local copy of the now officially unavailable report.
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Events unfold typical of Nazi concentration camps

[TamilNet, Thursday, 30 April 2009, 10:13 GMT]
Food parcels were thrown to people after making them run like dogs, and two children were killed in the melee in the barbed-wire camp at Menik Farm, Vavuniyaa. A 12-year-old boy on Monday and a 7-year-old boy on Tuesday were crushed to death in the melee, media sources in Vavuniyaa said. Meanwhile, around 300 Tamil youth from several camps in the area were forcefully taken by the Sri Lanka army, in the name of arrest, amidst protests of family members on Tuesday. Recently, 60 people have died of sickness in the camps, the sources further said. A total of 154,368 Vanni civilians are in captivity by the SLA up to Wednesday and out of them, 90, 181, were captured after 20 April.
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Moothoor IDPs demand to be resettled in their own villages

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 29 April 2009, 10:50 GMT]
Hundreds of men, women and children displaced from Champoor East and West, Kooniththeevu and Kadatkaraicheanai Village Officer divisions in Trincomalee district gathered in Batticaloa Koaddaimunai Methodist Church premises Wednesday on completing the third year of their forced displacement due to Sri Lanka Army (SLA) offensives in 2206, to pray and fast from morning till evening in an effort to draw the authorities' attention to their plea to be resettled in their original villages, Moothoor East Internally Displaced Peoples’ Welfare Association, which organized the event said.
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'Explicit international deceit on Tamils'

[TamilNet, Monday, 27 April 2009, 20:03 GMT]
“What is the limit of IC’s appeasement with Colombo and what is the limit of IC in cheating Tamils,” asks Sri Navaratnam, on the 8th day of his hunger strike in Oslo, furious at the news of Colombo’s all out attack on Tamil civilians Monday night. “To facilitate the international community to deceive Tamils, Sri Lanka’s president Mahinda Rajapaksa on Monday announced the halt of the use of heavy weapons in the safety zone of more than 165,000 civilians. Everybody welcomed it as though killing the civilians by small weapons is acceptable. It was a joke, the UN begging ‘Sri Lanka must respect heavy weapons pledge’, as though they are prepared to act if Sri Lanka breaches it. Colombo, which was already aerial bombing the civilians started with intense barrage of heavy weapons Monday night”, he cited.
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LTTE announces unilateral ceasefire

[TamilNet, Sunday, 26 April 2009, 10:38 GMT]
"In the face of an unprecedented humanitarian crisis and in response to the calls made by the UN, EU, the governments of the USA, India and others, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam has announced an unilateral ceasefire. All of LTTE’s offensive military operations will cease with immediate effect," said a press statement issued by the Political Head Quarters of the LTTE Sunday. "We have taken into account the recent declarations by the G8 nations, the Whitehouse, Indian Ministers and the EU and other members of international community. We are in full agreement that the humanitarian crisis can only be overcome by declaration of an immediate ceasefire," the statement said calling upon the international community to pressure the Sri Lankan Government to reciprocate it.
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Outrageous response of UN to humanitarian crisis: Diaspora scientist

[TamilNet, Saturday, 25 April 2009, 14:33 GMT]
Children as young as 12 are forcefully recruited and given with guns to fight on the front line alongside LTTE, Guardian.co.uk reported Saturday, 9.49 GMT, citing Gordon Weiss, UN spokesman in Sri Lanka. “Whom are they guarding”, Tamil circles asked. “It is outrageous that the UN which has no means to stop Colombo’s genocide or immediately take responsibility of the captured and even reluctant to talk about the high casualty but only ‘leaks out’ figures, to raise this matter at this juncture in an imbalanced way, when Colombo is bombarding the remaining civilians in the so-called safety zone”, said Thomas Aloysius, senior scientist in Bergan, Norway. “If what the UN official says is true, it is deplorable, but aren’t they too responsible for the tragedy by their inaction in prevailing upon Colombo to stop the war. The LTTE always ask for ceasefire”, he asked.
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