Pathmanathan calls for urgent international intervention

[TamilNet, Monday, 11 May 2009, 09:19 GMT]
Refuting the Sri Lankan propaganda that artillery and shelling against the Tamil civilians was carried out by the Tigers, Selvarasa Pathmanathan, the LTTE's head of international relations on Monday urged the governments of the world to prevail upon the Sri Lankan Government to prevent it from causing a collective tragedy.
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Paramilitary group intimidates Tamil dailies in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Monday, 11 May 2009, 06:49 GMT]
The paramilitary group operating with Sri Lanka Army (SLA) in Jaffna threatened Jaffna Tamil dailies to refute news published related to the extortion through abduction of girl students in Jaffna peninsula, Colombo media organizations said. Meanwhile, SLA in Jaffna told the media that the particular news had been published though no one has complained to them or the police regarding the extortion.
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Grand response to Norway ballot: 80 percent turn out

[TamilNet, Monday, 11 May 2009, 03:41 GMT]
Around 80 percent of eligible voters among Eezham Tamils in the cities and other centres where a ballot was conducted to test the current validity of Vaddukkoaddai Resolution, turned out for the voting, Utrop news paper, which conducted the ballot, reported Sunday night. The voting took place on Sunday between 11:00 a.m. and 7:00 p.m., simultaneously in 6 centres in the major cities and in 8 other centres in suburban and remote towns of Norway. People were seen standing in long queues to cast their votes on the gist of the Resolution, whether they like an independent and sovereign Tamil Eelam or not. This is the first time the question is tested through universal suffrage, 33 years after its endorsement by the Eezham Tamils in the 1977 general elections in Sri Lanka. The results are awaited Monday noon.
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SLA continues to inflict carnage

[TamilNet, Monday, 11 May 2009, 01:30 GMT]
Sri Lanka Army (SLA) has stepped up relentless barrage of shelling using all sorts of heavy weapons on the so-called safety-zone (no-fire zone) in Mu'l'li-vaaykkaal and Vadduvaakal areas where more than 130,000 civilians have sought refuge without adequate bunkers and shelters. Civilian casualties are mounting amidst lack of medicine and food due to limited or denied supplies into the area of 7 square kilometres. Lawrence Christy, the head of Tamils Rehabilitation Organisation (TRO) Field Office on Monday put the death toll of civilians on Monday at more than 3,200 killed since Sunday evening up to Monday morning. He has called on the IC to immediately invoke the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) to the stop the genocide.
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Ilanthirayan seriously wounded in SLA barrage

[TamilNet, Sunday, 10 May 2009, 15:38 GMT]
Liberation Tigers of Tamileelam (LTTE) Military Spokesman Irasiah Punitharooban alias Ilanthirayan (Marshall) sustained heavy injuries in the latest artillery barrage by the Sri Lanka Army (SLA) in the early hours of Sunday, sources close to LTTE in Vanni told TamilNet.
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1200 bodies counted, hundreds seriously injured, aerial bombing continues

[TamilNet, Sunday, 10 May 2009, 11:26 GMT]
Rescue workers within the Mullaiththeevu Safety Zone have counted more than 1200 bodies after the large scale slaughter Saturday night and Sunday morning by the Sri Lanka Army (SLA) with the use of cluster ammunition, multi-barrel rocket launchers and cannons, sources from Vanni said. The workers fear that there may be additional bodies yet to be uncovered, and the numbers killed will likely rise. Rescue workers also said several hundreds were very seriously injured, and the critical shortage of medicine at the makeshift hospital in Mu'l'li-vaaykkaal will lead to many more deaths. Meanwhile, Mu'l'li-vaaykkaal Hospital staff said, until 3:00 p.m. the number of bodies brought to the hospital was 378, injured totaled 1122. The staffers added that 106 of the dead, and 251 of the injured were children.
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Tamil civilian arrested in Puththa’lam

[TamilNet, Sunday, 10 May 2009, 09:05 GMT]
Sri Lanka Army (SLA) and police conducted several cordon and search operations since Thursday in Va’n’naaththivi’l’lu and Paalaavi in Puththa’lam district in which a Tamil civilian was taken into custody and hundreds of Tamil, Muslim and Sinhalese civilians were interrogated, sources in Puththa’lam said. Residents of the above places have been asked by the police to register themselves in their respective police stations immediately as these villages are located on the borders of Wilpattu sanctuary. Police sources said the measure has been taken to ensure that no strangers infiltrate these villages.
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Norway Tamils ballot-test political course

[TamilNet, Sunday, 10 May 2009, 08:50 GMT]
"After deliberately abetting the process of ethnic polarisation to its height reaching genocide, and after creating a situation that warrants secession more than ever, the international community and India, vested with their own interests, have started talking about a federal solution. It is time that the Tamils have to democratically test the validity of the political course democratically set for them in 1976 by the Vaddukkoaddai Resolution and democratically tell the world what they want now," commented a self-exiled Tamil politician of the pre-1977 times responding to a ballot on Vaddukkoaddai resolution taking place among Eezham Tamils in Norway on Sunday.
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2,000 civilians feared slaughtered in a single night

[TamilNet, Sunday, 10 May 2009, 02:55 GMT]
Indiscriminate barrage of shelling by the Sri Lanka Army (SLA) on the 'safety zone' starting from Saturday night to Sunday morning slaughtered more than 2,000 civilians including large number of women and children, medical sources in Vanni said quoting the injured who managed to reach the makeshift hospital. Dead bodies are scattered everywhere and 814 wounded managed to reach the makeshift hospital up to 9:25 a.m., doctors said. Every kind of lethal weapon such as the internationally banned cluster shells and shells fired from Multi Barrel Rocket Launchers and Cannons were used turning the so-called safety zone into a killing field. The SLA usually chooses weekends for its massacres to minimise international attention.
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SLA artillery barrage hits 'safety zone' as ICRC ship leaves Mullaiththeevu

[TamilNet, Saturday, 09 May 2009, 19:34 GMT]
Sri Lanka Army (SLA) stepped up heavy shelling into the safety zone Saturday around 7:00 a.m. Within an hour, more than 50 seriously wounded civilians were rushed to the makeshift hospital now functioning at a junior school in Mu'l'li-vaaykkaal, medical sources reported Saturday night. The SLA stepped up artillery and mortar barrage into the 8 square kilometer area where civilians numbering between 120,000 to 165,000 are starving without adequate humanitarian supplies amid congestion. Despite Sri Lanka's assurance to the international community heavy weapons are still targetted towards safety zone.
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Vanni civilians in SLA detention centres to be settled in Thenmaraadchi

[TamilNet, Saturday, 09 May 2009, 15:54 GMT]
Sri Lanka Army (SLA) authorities in Jaffna have decided to permanently settle the civilians from Vanni, now held in the SLA detention centres in Jaffna district, in three large detention centres to be located in Allaarai area in Kodikaamam and Kaithadi, in Thenmaraadchi, sources in Jaffna said. The SLA detention centres in Mirusuvil Roman Catholic Church premises and Kodikaamam Government Tamil Mixed School (GTMS) will continue to be maintained, the sources added.
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Tamil families to be evicted to settle injured Sinhala soldiers

[TamilNet, Saturday, 09 May 2009, 14:42 GMT]
Mano Ganeshan, leader of the Democratic Peoples Front and Colombo district parliamentarian in an urgent letter faxed to Sri Lanka's President Mahinda Rajapakse, urged him to stop moves to oust sixty two Tamil families residing in Vavelkanthura GS division in Ratnapura district and to settle injured soldiers of the Sri Lanka Army (SLA), sources in Colombo said. The said Tamil families have owned and been living in their homes for the past seven decades, according to local sources.
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Extortion through abduction of children increases in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Saturday, 09 May 2009, 07:22 GMT]
Officers of local UN organizations in Jaffna peninsula have complained to Sri Lanka Army (SLA) high authorities in Jaffna of demands of extortion and intimidation that their school going children will be abducted, sources in Jaffna said. Though the said officers confirmed the demands and intimidation they refused to give additional information. The persons alleged to be the perpetrators are Sri Lanka Army (SLA) backed paramilitary men who move freely during SLA imposed curfew hours and around SLA camps in the peninsula, civil society sources in Jaffna said.
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SLA removes young women to Thellippazhai SLA camp

[TamilNet, Saturday, 09 May 2009, 05:31 GMT]
Sri Lanka Army (SLA) officers took away nearly a hundred young women from Vanni held in Thenmaraadchchi SLA detention centres in buses to Thellippazhai SLA Special Rehabilitation Camp (SRC), claiming that the young women had been given military training by Liberation Tigers, sources in Jaffna said. The young women, however, were brought back to the detention centres following the strong protest and agitation raised by the parents and family members of the young women, the sources added.
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SLA steps up carnage on civilians

[TamilNet, Friday, 08 May 2009, 20:33 GMT]
Sri Lanka Army (SLA) has continued heavy shelling with cluster-munitions on civilian targets in Mu'l'li-vaaykkaal within the so-called safety zone throughout Thursday and Friday. Several civilians have been killed and many sustained injuries as Sri Lanka Air Force (SLAF) surveillance aircraft was providing coordinates of densely populated places for the SLA to target civilians. At least 242 civilians were registered as wounded on Friday alone. Medical sources reported that 45 of the wounded, including 15 children, had succumbed to injuries adding that scores were killed and that those killed on the spot were not brought to hospital.
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SLA, Police arrest 75 Tamil civilians in Colombo

[TamilNet, Friday, 08 May 2009, 15:51 GMT]
Sri Lanka Army (SLA) soldiers and Sri Lanka Police arrested seventy five Tamil youths who are residents of Jaffna, Batticaloa, Trincomalee and upcountry areas in cordon and search operations conducted during the last three days from dusk to dawn in Kotahena, Grandpass, Muhathuwaaram, Wellawatte, Bambalapitya and Kollupitty. Similar operation was also conducted in Negombo, Gampaha and Kalutara, media sources in Colombo said.
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'Post-conflict is post-Sri Lankan'

[TamilNet, Friday, 08 May 2009, 13:31 GMT]
The Norwegian peace facilitator Erik Solheim is half a century late in calling for a federal solution to the Tamil national question in the island of Sri Lanka, said TamilNet’s political commentator in Colombo. “By naming the solution in his mind, whether Erik Solhiem is resigning from his role of peace facilitation and assumes another profile”, asked the commentator. “A federal agenda upheld at this juncture is a mockery of the spirit of federalism. A successful federal set-up comes only from spontaneous and mutual consent of peoples. Warring parties of a long legacy may make federal more miserable. The bitter war unchecked but abetted by the international community in the island leads to nothing but secession”, the commentator further said.
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Family man reported missing with Jaffna HRC

[TamilNet, Thursday, 07 May 2009, 16:43 GMT]
An officer attached to Kodikaamam Agriculture Department is reported missing since 30 April while returning home from Nalloor in Jaffna, according to complaints registered with Jaffna Human Rights Commission (HRC) office. Meanwhile, Sri Lanka Army (SLA) in Jaffna continues to announce over loud speakers that all Vanni civilians not staying in the SLA detention centres should surrender themselves before 31 May and that the failure to do so will have serious consequences, sources in Jaffna said.
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Students boycott schools in Batticaloa against abduction of girl student

[TamilNet, Thursday, 07 May 2009, 14:07 GMT]
Students of nearly 25 schools in and around Batticaloa town continued their boycott of schools for the ninth day Thursday in protest against the abduction of Satheskumar Thinusika, a grade 3 girl student of Batticaloa Koaddaimunai Junior School by a paramilitary group operating with Sri Lanka Army (SLA), sources in Batticaloa said. Meanwhile, parents alleged that the police have shot and killed three suspects in order to save the main perpetrators who hold high positions in the government, the sources added.
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LTTE guarantees safety and security for ICRC

[TamilNet, Thursday, 07 May 2009, 08:58 GMT]
Dispelling hints and accusations by certain sections that the LTTE has not guaranteed safe passage to the ICRC to bring in humanitarian relief such as food and medicine, the LTTE political head B. Nadesan in a letter dated 4th May, has given a written assurance that the LTTE reiterates its full commitment and support to the ICRC in its humanitarian and mandated activities. Nadesan requested to consider the letter as a necessary security guarantee. Nadesan was accusing that it was the Sri Lanka government and its forces that were blocking the activities of the ICRC by launching military manoeuvres. Even on Thursday, around 10 AM, Colombo’s forces were shelling towards the ICRC vehicles that had come to the shore to undertake transportation of the wounded civilians, and there were minor damages to the vehicles, LTTE officials said.
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