British celebrities, MPs endorse Mercy Mission to Vanni

[TamilNet, Thursday, 02 April 2009, 05:34 GMT]
A global appeal event for the "Mercy Mission," a ship carrying relief and medical supplies to Vanni, was held Tuesday at the Royal Horseguards, UK, attended by several British Members of Parliament, celebrities to raise awareness of the humanitarian situation in Sri Lanka to the public, organizers of the event said. The event was sponsored by "Act Now" and several Tamil charities. A petition addressed to the President of Sri Lanka was signed by the attending MPs and other celebrities, and the organizers said that the petition will be circulated to political leaders and other celebrities in US, Europe, Canada and Australia before the petition is sent to Colombo.
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SLA fired artillery shells create havoc inside safety zone

[TamilNet, Thursday, 02 April 2009, 04:46 GMT]
Lawrence Christy, planning director at the Tamils Rehabilitation Organization (TRO) details the human toll due to indiscriminate firing of artillery shells by the Sri Lanka Army (SLA) into the demarcated safety zone where more than 200,000 Tamil civilans have taken refuge. United Nations leaked document listed the number of killed as 2683 and wounded as 7241 between January 20 and March 7. Hundreds have been killed and injured in the last three weeks.
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SL High Commission in UK differentiates Tamil students from Sri Lankans

[TamilNet, Thursday, 02 April 2009, 02:20 GMT]
“We are also being informed by Sri Lankan diaspora [in UK] that Tamil students in schools, attended by their children, have made presentations titled ‘Stop Tamil Genocide’ during their citizenship class,” complained a recent letter signed by Sri Lanka’s Deputy High Commissioner, Sumith Nakandala, sent to head teachers of schools in Britain. Responding to the letter, the Chairman of British Tamils Forum (BTF) said: “British MPs and even a minister have recently expressed apprehension in British Parliament over impending genocide of Tamils at the hands of the Sri Lankan government and its armed forces. But the Sri Lankan High Commission is attempting to bully the democratic rights of the school students in London learning and voicing against the genocide in Sri Lanka.”
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US envisioning 'post-conflict' period puzzles Tamil circles

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 01 April 2009, 11:09 GMT]
“The international community has started planning for the post-conflict period”, said a letter written a week ago by US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton to US Congress members who had shown concern to the humanitarian situation in the island of Sri Lanka. “I emphasized that the Sri Lanka Army should not fire into the areas where civilians are trapped in the conflict zone. I urged President Rajapaksa to devise a political solution to the ongoing conflict”, the letter further said. On the contrary, as civilian killings are only intensified by Colombo and as there are no signs of recognising the long-standing basic Tamil aspiration of self-determination, Tamil circles wonder what is meant by ‘post-conflict’ and by ‘political solution'.
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LTTE Political Wing responds to John Holmes' briefing

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 01 April 2009, 08:36 GMT]
Liberation Tigers of Tamileelam (LTTE) Political Wing on Tuesday released the contents of a letter it recently sent to the UN, where it reiterated that an immediate ceasefire is urgent for the humanitarian aid and relief to reach the affected people. Stating that "no pressure is being exerted on the Government of Sri Lanka to bring an immediate end to the shelling that is slaughtering Tamil civilians in their thousands," the letter charged that "even while the Sri Lankan government is an active member of the United Nations, the UN is unable to rein in its own member state from killing civilians in thousands."
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SLA attacks kill 88 Tamils, including 21 children on Monday

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 31 March 2009, 16:17 GMT]
Sri Lanka Army (SLA) shelling on Monday claimed the lives of 70 civilians as Fifty Caliber gunfire from the SLA positions across the lagoon also killed 18 civilians on the road, which links the makeshift hospital with IDP settlements. 21 of the slain victims and 31 of 156 wounded civilians were children. 63 tarpaulin huts were destroyed in SLA attacks. TamilNet correspondent witnessed that four children were orphaned as they lost both their parents and siblings. The civilians were struggling to take their wounded to the hospital as the entire stretch of the road has come under 50 Caliber machine gun fire. Four civilians, including a worker of the fishing union that arranges boats to transport the patients from the coastal point Thidal to the ICRC ship, were wounded in SLA gunfire.
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Resettled Tamils in Moothoor east live in fear

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 31 March 2009, 15:40 GMT]
Resettled Tamil families in Moothoor east and Tamil villages in Serunuwara division in Trincomalee district are living in terror following the killings of three Tamil farmers of Paarathipuram, Thangkanakar and Poonakar. Tamil civilians in this area fear that these killings had taken place in revenge of the killing of Sinhala farmers in Serunuwara by some unidentified men last week, sources in Moothoor said.
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Case filed to block US vote on IMF loan to Sri Lanka

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 31 March 2009, 04:00 GMT]
Tamils Against Genocide (TAG), a US-based activist group, filed a complaint against Secretary of the US Treasury, Timothy Geithner, and the US Executive Director at the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Meg Lundsager, in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia to obtain a "declaratory judgment that a failure of the United States to oppose Sri Lanka’s pending $1.9 billion IMF loan application would constitute a violation of 22 U.S.C. 262d," Monday at 6:00 p.m. Filing can be accessed by refering to Docket No: 09-0598, according to Bruce Fein, counsel for TAG.
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Apply adequate pressure on Colombo for ceasefire and negotiations: LTTE

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 31 March 2009, 01:09 GMT]
The LTTE is not a movement believing that war is the only means to achieve the aspirations of the people it represents. But, political solution needs an environment conducive to it. The IC can play a positive role by adequately pressurizing Colombo for ceasefire and by promoting negotiations between GoSL and the LTTE as equal partners with due recognition, said Selvaraja Pathmanathan, the LTTE plenipotentiary for international relations, in an interview to TamilNet on Monday. On the issue of civilians, Mr. Pathmanathan said they have already asked the IC, what international instruments now hold GoSL accountable for the denial of basic rights of the people already moved and presently living in the internment camps.
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2 Tamils in Moothoor shot dead

[TamilNet, Monday, 30 March 2009, 16:40 GMT]
Unidentified armed men shot and killed Saturday night two Tamil civilians in front of Paarathipuram Viththiyaalayam in Moothoor in Trincomalee district. One of them was brought by the armed men from Thanganakar to Paarathipuram where both men were handcuffed behind their backs and shot to death, sources in Moothoor said.
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SLA attacks kill 53 civilians inside 'safety zone' Sunday

[TamilNet, Monday, 30 March 2009, 14:34 GMT]
Sri Lanka Army (SLA) continued artillery, mortar and long-distance gunfire throughout Sunday killing at least 53 civilians and causing injuries to around 119. At least 17 civilians were killed in Maaththa'lan, 18 in Pokka'nai, 15 in Valaignarmadam and 3 in Pachchaip-pulmoaddai, reports TamilNet correspondent from Vanni. Meanwhile, around 1,192 civilians including 275 children, belonging to 298 families have lost their shelters within last 5 days as their tarpaulin huts were completely destroyed in SLA attacks.
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Arundhati Roy: "Colossal humanitarian tragedy"

[TamilNet, Monday, 30 March 2009, 00:52 GMT]
Pointing an accusing finger at the Indian Government for silence on the unfolding tragedy in Sri Lanka, Arundhati Roy, writer and activisit, in an article appearing in Times of India says, "while the killing continues, while tens of thousands of people are being barricaded into concentration camps, while more than 200,000 face starvation, and a genocide waits to happen, there is dead silence from this great country [India]. It’s a colossal humanitarian tragedy. The world must step in. Now. Before it’s too late."
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'Global order' experiments with body and mind of Vanni civilians

[TamilNet, Sunday, 29 March 2009, 01:17 GMT]
To what extent human beings can survive under extreme conditions was a Nazi research on the ‘dispensable Jews’ of the concentration camps, to find out the levels of extremity the human body and mind can withstand. Academic and professional circles raise an alarm that the Colombo government and the abetting powers, in experimenting political cum military effectiveness of their local and global order through a no-witness genocidal war, are probably at such a research with the Eezham Tamils. "Whether a humanitarian catastrophe faced by them is deliberately ignored by the international community and whether the instruments of humanitarian intervention have given up Vanni people for good," ask Dr. J. Sivamanoharan and S. Edmond Reginold, professionals of mental health working in Vanni.
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US Group notifies IMF, US Treasury of filing complaint

[TamilNet, Saturday, 28 March 2009, 13:42 GMT]
Counsel for the US-based activist group, Tamils Against Genocide (TAG), in a letter addressed to Secretary of the US Treasury, Timothy Geithner, and to the US Executive Director at the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Meg Lundsager, Friday, said that TAG will be filing a complaint Monday in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia "to obtain a declaratory judgment that a failure of the United States to oppose Sri Lanka’s pending $1.9 billion IMF loan application would constitute a violation of 22 U.S.C. 262d."
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Sydney protest draws more than 5,000

[TamilNet, Saturday, 28 March 2009, 11:30 GMT]
More than 5,000 protesters took to the streets of Sydney Saturday demanding action against the Sri Lankan government and the atrocities being committed against Tamil civilians caught up in the war in the Vanni. Sydney's Central Business District suffered traffic congestion and delays as demonstrators took over major city roads as the protesters marched towards the city's Town Hall, participants in the rally said.
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257 Tamils arrested in outskirts of Colombo

[TamilNet, Saturday, 28 March 2009, 05:41 GMT]
Sri Lanka Army (SLA) and police took into custody 301 persons including 257 Tamils in a joint search conducted in Gampaha, in the outskirts of Colombo city, from Thursday 6:00 p.m till Friday 6:00 a.m, according to police spokesman, Ranjith Gunasekara. 8,830 persons were interrogated in the search, he said. The relatives of the arrested Tamils have lodged complaints with Deputy Minister, P. Rathakrishnan and Mano Ganeshan, leader of Western Peoples’ Front (WPF) and Colombo district parliamentarian.
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4 Tamils arrested in Katunayake

[TamilNet, Saturday, 28 March 2009, 04:24 GMT]
Four Tamil civilians who are residents of North and East were arrested by the Katunayake police and Sri Lanka Army (SLA) in a cordon and search operation conducted on Thursday. The owner of the house where they were boarders was also taken into custody for interrogation, police sources said.
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Jesse Jackson calls for ceasefire

[TamilNet, Friday, 27 March 2009, 23:13 GMT]
Veteran American civil rights campaigner Reverend Jesse Jackson, who addressed the diaspora Tamil conference in London on Thursday said that "we [the global community] have a moral obligation to stop the killings" in Sri Lanka. The American civil rights activist also raised the need to increase the international awareness of the crisis and asked what his organisation, the Rainbow Push Coalition could do to help. Rev. Jackson stated that the crisis can only be resolved by "thinking it out, and not by shooting it out." He called for a commitment to a ceasefire because “we cannot negotiate to the sound of bullets whizzing over our heads.”
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Diaspora conference in London calls for immediate ceasefire

[TamilNet, Friday, 27 March 2009, 22:27 GMT]
45 Tamil dignitaries from 21 countries gathered in London on Wednesday and Thursday to resolve that an immediate ceasefire in Sri Lanka was essential and that humanitarian access to the Vanni should be permitted immediately. The delegates also said that the Eezham Tamils should determine their own destiny and emphasized that the people of the traditional Tamil homeland had not only given their democratic mandate to the homeland concept, but they also have reiterated that mandate at every juncture of their political discourse.
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7 Tamils including 3 women arrested in South

[TamilNet, Friday, 27 March 2009, 07:06 GMT]
Sri Lanka Army (SLA) and police arrested seven Tamils including three women Wednesday in a cordon and search operation conducted in Kamburupitiya, a town in the southern province, police sources said. The arrestees, residents of estates located in Galle and Deniyaa, are detained and interrogated in Kamburupitya police station as they had failed to prove their identity and justify their presence in the location.
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