International inaction reveal hollowness of external assurances - paper

[TamilNet, Monday, 09 June 2008, 10:29 GMT]
By rearming and stabilizing the Sri Lankan state after the ceasefire and then encouraging a hardline approach to the Liberation Tigers, the international community is responsible for the catastrophe unfolding in the island, the Tamil Guardian newspaper argued in its latest editorial. "Rather than seizing the moment [of the peace process] and making the restoration of the Tamils' dignity and self-rule their focus, the international community made the weakening and marginalizing of the LTTE their preoccupation" the paper said. "Presently, whilst an imposed solution is in the interests of everyone except the Tamils, a just solution is, conversely, in the interests of only the Tamils."
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250 Tamils arrested Monday in Colombo region

[TamilNet, Monday, 09 June 2008, 02:44 GMT]
Police arrested more than 250 persons in a search conducted Monday in Colombo, Avissawela, Buwakpitiya, Peliyagoda and Gampaha, Sri Lanka police spokesman and Senior Police Commissioner Ranjith Gunasekara said. Persons from outstations without documents of identification and proper reason for their stay were arrested, he said. More than 220 Tamils have been arrested in Avissawela and Buwakpitiya areas.
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Journalist Tissanayagam's detention extended by three months

[TamilNet, Sunday, 08 June 2008, 14:23 GMT]
Sri Lanka's Defense Ministry has extended the detention order served on a senior journalist J.S.Tissanayagam and two other Tamils, V.Jasikaran and Ms V.Valarmathy for another three months as the earlier order had lapsed on June 5. The Terrorist Investigation Division (TID) of Sri Lanka Police produced three detention orders for each of the suspects instead of producing them before the Colombo Additional Magistrate Ms Kumari Jayewardene Friday, June 6, legal sources said.
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Fein seeks SL Defence Ministry approval to visit Sri Lanka

[TamilNet, Sunday, 08 June 2008, 02:37 GMT]
Responding to Sri Lanka Defence Ministry posting that labeled U.S. based attorney for a Tamil activist group, Bruce Fein, as "Carrion Bird of LTTE Terrorism," Fein said in a letter to Sri Lanka's President Rajapakse that he accepts Sri Lanka Defence Ministry's invitation to "any interested party to visit Sri Lanka and see how the people of all ethnicities live in harmony in this country," and requested the Ministry to inform him the travel dates allowing him to obtain "direct and candid testimony of Tamil sentiments toward a unitary state as opposed to separate Tamil statehood."
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Don't visit Colombo, Ganesan tells NorthEast Tamils

[TamilNet, Saturday, 07 June 2008, 16:58 GMT]
Accusing both the Government of Sri Lanka and the Liberation Tigers for action irrationally, Mano Ganesan, leader of Western People’s Front (WPF) and the Convener of Civil Monitoring Commission (CMC) said in a media release Saturday, "[n]either the government nor the LTTE have any control over blasts going on in the respective territories under their own control," and appealed to the Tamil civilians travelling from NorthEast to stay away from Colombo and the South as both areas are "unsafe and insecure for Tamil civilians."
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SLA arrests Moratuwa university Tamil students at checkposts

[TamilNet, Saturday, 07 June 2008, 08:36 GMT]
At least 20 Tamil students studying at the University of Moratuwa, transferred by the Sri Lankan police to Bambalapitiya, security-checked and cleared to travel to their native places after the Claymore attack that took place in the morning, were arrested by the Sri Lanka Army at Medawachchiya and at Iraddaip Periyaku'lam in Vavuniyaa Friday night. More than 30 Tamil students are detained by the Sri Lankan forces after the attack in Katubedda.
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Two Tamils abducted in Colombo Friday

[TamilNet, Saturday, 07 June 2008, 03:01 GMT]
Two Tamil civilians were abducted in Vaalaithoddam and Aattupattiththeru in Colombo city Friday afternoon by unidentified persons who came in vehicles, according to complaints lodged with respective police stations by the relatives, media sources in Colombo said.
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27 Tamils arrested in Wellawatte

[TamilNet, Thursday, 05 June 2008, 20:59 GMT]
Twenty seven Tamil civilians including four women were taken in for questioning by the police in Wellawatte in a lightning cordon and search conducted in Wellawatte area Thursday. They are being detained in the police station and interrogated by the Terrorist Intelligence Division (TID), media sources reported.
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Mob attacks ambulance in Kaththaankudi

[TamilNet, Thursday, 05 June 2008, 07:56 GMT]
Nine civilians, 6 of them patients and 3 medical staff, were wounded Thursday around 11:00 a.m. when a mob stoned an ambulance which was on its way to Batticaloa Hospital from Akkaraippattu Base Hospital. The angry Muslim mob was not aware that it was attacking an ambulance with 6 Muslims, Police said. Tension prevails in Kaaththaankudi and the surrounding areas. Meanwhile, medical staff at Batticaloa Teaching hospital staged a protest rally towards Batticaloa Police protesting against the security laps in the area where tension prevailed Thursday and demanded improved security measures for medical workers and ambulances.
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16 Tamils wounded in mob attack in Kaaththaankudi

[TamilNet, Thursday, 05 June 2008, 06:40 GMT]
Sixteen Tamil civilians, traveling in a private bus, lorry and another vehicle on Batticaloa Kalmunai road were wounded when a Muslim mob armed with stones and batons attacked them in Kaththaankudi around 10:30 a.m., following a rumour that a Muslim trader was knifed in Araiyampathi. Sri Lankan Special Task Force (STF) opened fire to disperse the crowd and brought the said Muslim trader to the street to show that he was unhurt, police officials said. 26 Tamils were wounded. 16 Tamils including 3 females and a 12-year-old minor were admitted to the district hospital in Aaraiyampathi and four of them were transferred to Batticaloa Teaching hospital.
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Colombo conspires Tamil - Muslim divide: Vaiko

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 03 June 2008, 12:47 GMT]
The General Secretary of the Marumalarchi Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (MDMK), Vaiko, on Monday strongly condemned the Sri Lankan minister Keheliya Rambukwelle for distorting his comments made in Oslo in April, to sound anti-Muslim. It was part of the 'scheming machination' of the Sri Lankan government to divide Tamils and Muslims in Sri Lanka, especially in the East, said Vaiko in a statement issued in Tamil.
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"Plucked peace flower"- Washington Times

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 03 June 2008, 11:25 GMT]
In a commentary appearing in the Tuesday issue of Washington Times, Bruce Fein, Washington-based attorney for a Tamil Activist Group, and Chairman of the American Freedom Agenda, says that "the peace solution to Sri Lanka's descent into hell was discerned by [Ambassador] Mr. Blake - even if unwittingly - in an interview published in the Sunday Observer on May 25. The subtext affirmed the right of the Tamil people to determine their own political destiny without dictation by Tamil Tiger leader, Velupillai Prabharkaran, or by any other person or organization."
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3 white van abductions in Puththa'lam

[TamilNet, Monday, 02 June 2008, 16:31 GMT]
Three Tamils were abducted by unidentified men in Puththa'alm Saturday afternoon and Sunday, sources in Puththa'lam said. One was abducted by gunmen in a white van Sunday, and the other two Saturday afternoon while travelling in an auto-rickshaw, also by men who arrived in a white van.
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SLMC responsible for inciting violence between communities – Amir Ali

[TamilNet, Monday, 02 June 2008, 13:44 GMT]
Rauff Hakeem, the leader of Sri Lanka Muslim Congress (SLMC), and Basheer Segudawood the chairman of the party are responsible for creating a conspiracy to initiate ethnic conflict between the Tamil and Muslim communities, charged Minister of Disaster Relief Services M.S.S.Ameer Ali at a conference held May 28 at Ea’raavoor police station attended by a number of senior government officials and media personnel.
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Muslim mob injures 4 Tamils near Aarayampathi

[TamilNet, Sunday, 01 June 2008, 13:07 GMT]
Muslims from Kaaththaankudi armed with knives and machetes cut injured four Tamil building masons returning to Aarayampathi after work Sunday around 5:30 p.m, in the boundary area between Kaaththaankudi and Aaryampathi following the recovery of the corpse of a Muslim vegetable trader in Batticaloa Sunday around 1:30 p.m,. The Muslim mob, trying to enter into the Tamil village of Aarayampathi, is being held back police and Special Task Force (STF) commandos deployed in the said area.
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SLA appropriating Tamil IDPs' properties in Ampaa’rai district

[TamilNet, Sunday, 01 June 2008, 09:38 GMT]
The appropriation of the properties of the Internally Displaced People (IDP) and a Non-government organization in the Tamil areas in Ampaa’rai district by Sri Lanka Army (SLA) and Special Task Force (STF) Friday is a premeditated government plan to prevent the displaced from resettling in their traditional villages, K. Pathmananthan, the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) parliamentarian for Thikaamaduva in Ampaa’rai district, said.
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Complicit in silence- Kumar David

[TamilNet, Saturday, 31 May 2008, 22:38 GMT]
Pointing out that Rajapakse regime's "human rights record renders it undeserving of a seat on the UNHR Council," Prof. Kumar David, in a column in Lakbima, notes that a more worrying side to this state of affairs is that "significant majority of Sinhalese people are willing to look aside and allow human rights violations to proliferate, so long as the victims are Tamils, or persons suspected of LTTE sympathy, or journalists who expose military setbacks and lies, or as tit-for-tat replies to LTTE bomb blasts...the complicity of silence, on the part of a people in the crimes of its regime, the decay that will eventually corrode the fabric of that whole nation will be hideous."
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Development untenable without peace - Nadesan

[TamilNet, Friday, 30 May 2008, 11:42 GMT]
"Development is possible only when there is permanent peace. To achieve peace the International Community (IC) should engage seriously in restoring the status quo which the IC itself has disturbed in recent times, and should pressurise the Sri Lankan government to come to terms with a negotiated settlement," said Liberation Tigers of Tamileelam (LTTE) Political Head B. Nadesan, in an exclusive interview to TamilNet on Friday, while responding to a question on LTTE's position on International involvement in Colombo's 'development-agenda'. "Recognition of Tamil sovereignty and right to self-determination are key issues in creating a climate for a negotiated settlement," Nadesan added.
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5 Tamils held in Dehiwala train blast

[TamilNet, Thursday, 29 May 2008, 04:21 GMT]
Five Tamil civilians, including one person who returned from Canada, are being detained in Dehiwala police station in connection with the Dehiwala train blast that killed ten and injured about 70 persons. The police and Sri Lanka Army (SLA) soldiers conducted several cordon and search operations from Tuesday till Wednesday evening, detaining twenty Tamil civilians for questioning, police sources said.
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Disarm Pillaiyan group- NMC

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 28 May 2008, 11:31 GMT]
The National Muslim Council (NMC) in a statement to media said Pillaiyan group should be first disarmed to create normalcy in the east. The Sri Lanka government has not been taking any concrete steps to stop killings and abduction of Muslims by Pillaiyan group, NMC accused.
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