STF commandos arrest 10 Tamils in Ampaa’rai

[TamilNet, Sunday, 26 April 2009, 07:20 GMT]
Special Task Force (STF) commandos and police took into custody ten Tamils including two married women in joint cordon and search conducted Saturday early morning in Chinnaththoadam area in Thirukkoayil in Ampaa’rai district, according to their relatives. The arrestees are being detained in Thirukkoayil police station.
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Paramilitary men shoot dead 3 Tamils, a Muslim in Trincomalee

[TamilNet, Sunday, 26 April 2009, 06:54 GMT]
Paramilitary men operating with Sri Lanka Army (SLA) shot and killed Saturday around 8:45 two Tamil civilians including the President of the Nochchiku’lam Peace Committee and a Muslim civilian in Kantha’laay police division in Trincomalee district, sources in Trincomalee said. Meanwhile, paramilitary men gunned down a Tamil civilian Saturday around 9:00 p.m at Shaanthipuram in Kantha’laay police division, the sources added.a
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Independent Tamil Eelam only solution, we will fight to attain it: Jayalalitha

[TamilNet, Saturday, 25 April 2009, 22:13 GMT]
A separate Tamil Eelam is the only solution that will permanently put an end to the problems of the Tamil people in the island of Sri Lanka, said Tamil Nadu former Chief Minister and principal Leader of the Opposition, Ms. Jayalalitha at a election rally in Salem city Saturday. In a powerful, moving speech, she resolved to fight to attain independent Eelam.
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Colombo wanted to hide forced displacement of Tamils - Vithiyatharan

[TamilNet, Saturday, 25 April 2009, 20:53 GMT]
”The real reason for my arrest was to prevent me from publishing news on the forced displacement of Tamils, its impacts and about the significance of Tamils’ representation in Western Provincial Council elections,” Nadesapillai Vithiyatharan, the Chief Editor of the Tamil daily Sudaroli, who was ‘abducted’ and later claimed as ‘arrested’ by the Sri Lankan Terrorist Investigation Division (TID), said, after being released by Colombo Magistrate Court Friday, in a media report Friday in Colombo. “I was abducted on the final day of submission of nominations to the Western Provincial Council Election, Vithiyatharan said in the report.
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10 Tamils arrested in Badulla

[TamilNet, Saturday, 25 April 2009, 12:27 GMT]
Ten Tamil civilians were taken into custody in several estates surrounding Passara in Badulla district during a cordon and search operation conducted on Thursday from morning till evening. Police said the arrested were detained in police stations and being interrogated as they failed to prove their identity and justify the reason for their presence in the location.
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Demand for separate state can intensify, says Boston Globe

[TamilNet, Saturday, 25 April 2009, 11:50 GMT]
Pointing out that "[f]or more than a quarter century, successive Sri Lankan governments have refused to grant ethnic Tamils in the north and northeast of the country some form of autonomy or self-rule in a confederal state," the Boston Globe in an editiorial said Saturday that "[i]f the Tamil populace sees no hope for autonomy within Sri Lanka, it may come to demand a separate state." The Globe said, "[t]he Tigers have committed terrorist acts. But the overwhelming majority of the victims in the Rajapaksa brothers' war have been Tamil civilians."
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Parameswaran continues fast for the 18th day in London

[TamilNet, Saturday, 25 April 2009, 09:56 GMT]
The fast unto death protest by Parameswaran Subramnaiyam observed to draw the attention of the International Community to the ongoing catastrophe in Sri Lanka, reached its 18th day Friday as the diaspora Tamils in Britain continue their protest demonstration in the Parliament Square in London for the 19th day, sources in London said. Many people from various nationalities visit and express their support and sympathy for the cause for which the Tamils are demonstrating, the sources added.
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Physical capture and incarceration of people: latest ways of neo-colonialism

[TamilNet, Saturday, 25 April 2009, 06:01 GMT]
"The pundits of political science may have to revise the connotations of the word neo-colonialism as indirect ways of imperialism only operating through economy. The experiment that is taking place with the Tamil question in the island of Sri Lanka indicates that powers of today are bold enough to orchestrate physical capture of people in brutal ways without worrying about casualty and the imprisonment of the remaining indefinitely, in order to achieve their geopolitical goals," writes a regular political commentator to TamilNet. "The manipulations at the UN, open defiance in recognizing the obvious ethnic nature of the crisis, and the outrageous statement diplomacy empty of action in saving the oppressed, but signalling Colombo’s genocide, are clear evidences for the new trends of neo-colonialism, encountered by the world of freedom-loving people," the commentator writes.
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Rajapaksa appoints notorious commander to head IDP resettlement

[TamilNet, Friday, 24 April 2009, 17:32 GMT]
Sri Lankan President and C-in-C of the armed forces Mahinda Rajapaksa on Friday appointed Chief-of-Staff of the Sri Lanka Army (SLA) Maj. Gen. G.A. Chandrasiri as the Competent Authority Officer in charge of resettlement of Tamils from Vanni in alleged barbed-wire 'internment camps' and 'villages' in the North. Maj. Gen. Chandrasiri was the former chief of the SLA in Jaffna, under whose command Jaffna witnessed hundreds of forced disappearances, extra-judicial killings and other human rights violations in the period from 2006 to 2008. Meanwhile, Colombo has started to seek funds to 'resettle' and 'rehabilitate' civilians who have been captured from the LTTE controlled area.
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'Ostriches can never be right'

[TamilNet, Friday, 24 April 2009, 11:46 GMT]
It is as obvious as one’s palm that the crisis in Sri Lanka is ethnic. It is not just a story of today or yesterday. In contemporary politics it is dated back to 1931, ever since universal suffrage was introduced, paving way for ethnic majority rule. Sinhalese historians believing in Mahavamsa may trace it back to more than 2000 years. Contemporary history of the island is nothing but an ethnic bloodbath. But in the ‘most compassionate’ Mahinda Rajapaksa’s time, it is no more ethnic but only terrorist. People say he has been successful in convincing the international community so. The recent stand taken by UN and certain countries reducing the crisis to a humanitarian issue caused by ‘terrorism’, make observers only dumb-founded. Might, may be the supreme right, but however mighty, ostriches can never be right, said, a political analyst in Colombo on Friday.
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'Bountiful in killing shells, but no means for food packets'

[TamilNet, Friday, 24 April 2009, 00:37 GMT]
The Sri Lanka Army (SLA) which was able to fire thousands of shells per day into the so-called safety zone to capture the civilians, doesn't have enough means to feed them when they are captured, said a District Secretariat official in Vavuniyaa. The SLA, which is still keeping the civilians inside the militarized zone, north of Oamanthai, for its screening, has asked the Tamil people of Vavuniyaa through loudspeaker announcements, to donate cooked-food packets to supply the captured civilians, the official speaking in condition of anonymity told TamilNet Thursday. So far, no civil official is able to confirm the arrival of the new batch of civilians into the internment camps of Vavuniyaa town this week.
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Demonising Tamil struggle without citing solutions

[TamilNet, Thursday, 23 April 2009, 11:40 GMT]
What the Sinhala government is now trying to do to the Tamil people is nothing new. Exactly the same thing was done in Vietnam by the US army, writes Indian journalist T.G. Jacob from Kerala. “Sri Lankan Tamil refugees are there all over Europe and their number in India is growing. All these factors make the situation even more highly volatile, which in all possibility will create new polarizations. The short term military defeat of LTTE cannot at all prevent the Tamil issue from becoming an international one and change to guerilla war within the island. That is why the Sri Lankan political leadership is talking of ‘protected’ villages. Actually this is exactly what is happening now. The Sri Lankan government through all its barbarity and outrageous double talk is immensely facilitating this process”, he writes.
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SLA shelling on church kills 14, Caritas-HUDEC Vanni director wounded

[TamilNet, Thursday, 23 April 2009, 05:40 GMT]
Rev. Fr. T. R. Vasanthaseelan, the director of Human Development Centre (HUDEC) of Caritas Jaffna, the social arm of the Catholic Church in the Jaffna Diocese, was seriously wounded Thursday morning around 7:30 a.m. when Sri Lanka Army (SLA) fired shells on Our Lady of Roses Church in Valaignarmadam for the second day. 14 civilians who had taken refuge at the church were killed. The shelling on the church, which is the main centre for people seeking refuge in Valaignarmadam, comes a day after Rev. Fr. James Pathinathar was wounded in a similar attack. The SLA has attacked the church despite repeated calls from Jaffna Diocese not to target the church where 17 priests and 22 nuns were continuing to serve their congregations.
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"Inner well springs" of Tamil struggle can't be destroyed, says South African Minister

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 22 April 2009, 17:36 GMT]
South Africa's deputy minister for Communications, Radhakrishna Padayachie, has reiterated calls for bilateral talks between the Sri Lankan Government and the LTTE to establish a permanent peace. The African National Council (ANC) Member of Parliament, citing a "common conviction in the right to people for self determination" as the basis of continued relationship between his party and the LTTE, rejected suggestions that the LTTE can be defeated, and added that a political solution that addressed the "resolution of the minority question" was the only possible way forward.
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Stalling, obfuscation mirror UN's actions before Srebrenica genocide

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 22 April 2009, 16:19 GMT]
"This same type of deliberate stalling, delaying and obfuscation by United Nations Officials preceded and occurred during the course of the genocidal massacre at Srebrenica. Of course these UN Officials were then (and are still today) acting at the behest of the Permanent Members of the Security Council, who supported Serbia taking over the Srebrenica "safe-haven" as designated by the Security Council, no matter what the cost to the innocent civilians seeking refugee there," said Prof. Francis Boyle, professor of International Law at the University of Illinois College of Law, in a note sent to TamilNet, commenting on the denial at the United Nations to have Security Council hearings on the humanitarian situation in Sri Lanka.
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16 Tamil youths arrested in the suburbs of Colombo

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 21 April 2009, 15:37 GMT]
Sri Lanka Navy (SLN) and police took into custody Tuesday morning sixteen Tamil youths in searches conducted in the streets of Negombo and Minuwangoda, according to complaints made to Deputy Minister, P. Rathakrishnan by the youths' relatives.
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'Empty statements of IC evoke fury in the diaspora': Oslo hunger striker

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 21 April 2009, 14:57 GMT]
The whole concept of peace facilitation will become a mockery and no peace facilitation will hereafter be seen with credibility in the world, if Norway fails in its ‘responsibility’ in stopping civilian tragedy in Sri Lanka, said 51 years old Sri Navaratnam, the leader of Norway Tamil Sangam (association), who commenced an indefinite fast in Oslo, Monday, demanding Norway bringing out immediate ceasefire, negotiations between LTTE and GoSL, not sending civilians to camps but resettling them and Norway recognizing the self-determination of Eezham Tamils. Mr. Navaratnam was furious of empty statements coming from IC and said such statements without action only infuriate the already traumatised people.
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Perfect opportunity for US to prove credentials: ICG, Asia Director

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 21 April 2009, 12:44 GMT]
"Barack Obama's administration has said it is committed to the principals of international law and humanitarian protection. Sri Lanka is the perfect opportunity for the new U.S. president to show that this is not empty rhetoric," says an article by Robert Templer of the International Crisis Group. "Urgent, determined, and united international action is necessary to ensure the safety of the innocent -- by the United Nations Security Council, other multilateral organizations, and individual countries that have relations with Sri Lanka, including India and Japan. Only international supervision, unhindered by the government, can provide the necessary level of protection," writes the author, reflecting the changing and opportunistic perspectives of the IC, but elusive on the crux of the crisis – the Tamil national aspirations.
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Tamils blockade London's Parliament Square

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 21 April 2009, 12:15 GMT]
Thousands gathered around Parameswaran Subramaniyan's tent early Monday morning demanding the British Government to take immediate action against the carnage of Tamils in Sri Lanka to avoid another Tamil life being forsaken at Parliament Square in London, according to sources in London. Parameswaran, 28, on his 14th day of hunger strike, reiterated his calls to the British Government to impose for urgent ceasefire in Sri Lanka. Doctors by his side reported that his condition is critically weak. Dr Arundkumar Velauthapillai said "His condition is deteriorating rapidly. He is not taking enough water but he is stable for now."
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Fr. Karunaratnam remembered on First anniversary

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 21 April 2009, 11:24 GMT]
Mr. K.Sivapalan, Deputy Chairperson of North East Secretariat on Human Rights (NESoHR), on the first year anniversary of the killing of founder Chairperson of NESoHR, Rev.Father Mariampillai Xavier Karunaratnam, recounts his services to the community, and asks why the International Community is standing by as a Rwanda unfolds in Vanni. Father Karunaratnam was killed by the Deep Penetration Unit (DPU) of the Sri Lanka Army (SLA) on 20th April 2008 while he was driving from his residential prayer and counseling center in Vavunikku'lam.
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