Ea’raavoor remains paralyzed

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 28 May 2008, 10:53 GMT]
Ea’raavoor remains deserted due to the curfew imposed from Monday, and extended until Wednesday 5:00 a.m, sources in Ea'raavoor said. All business establishments, public and private institutions remain closed following the curfew imposed after the killing of a Muslim woman by Special Task Force (STF) commandos Monday.
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Fein: Hold referendum to test support for Tamil Statehood

[TamilNet, Monday, 26 May 2008, 18:15 GMT]
Bruce Fein, Attorney for a US-based Tamil Activist Group, in responding to a statement by Ambassador Robert Blake to Sunday Observer saying that from his discussions with Tamils he knows that "over 95 percent of them [Tamils] support a solution within a framework of a united Sri Lanka," challenged the Ambassador to hold a referendum to prove his assertion of percentage Tamil support, and added that "[i]f statehood prevails, the Ambassador should be the first to concede Prabhakaran’s superiority in discerning the political aspirations of the Tamil people."
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STF opens fire on Muslim protestors, mother killed, youth wounded

[TamilNet, Monday, 26 May 2008, 15:17 GMT]
Sri Lanka Special Task Force (STF) commandos in Ea'raavor opened fire on Muslim civilians who protested against the abduction of two Muslim youths by the TMVP paramilitary by blocking the Vaazhaichcheani Batticaloa main road Monday around 5:00 p.m., killing a mother and wounding a 24-year-old youth, according to initial reports. The protests intensified as another Muslim from Ea'raavoor, was abducted Monday by the paramilitary and subjected to torture inside a Coconut farm in Thannaamunai. He was freed by the Sri Lankan forces. Around 300 families of both the communities have displaced from the border areas. A police curfew was imposed at 6:00 p.m.
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Women Tigers documentary producers win award for new film

[TamilNet, Monday, 26 May 2008, 12:22 GMT]
Sabiha Sumar's "Dinner with the President: A Nation's Journey," which she made with her husband, political columnist Sachithanandam Sathananthan, won the highest award in the international documentary competition in the United Arab Emirates on Friday. Sri Lanka born Dr Sathananthan, currently in self-exile in India, and his Pakistani wife Sabiha Sumar, produced a 1996 documentary "Suicide Warriors" based on the lives of women cadre amongst the LTTE's women's brigade, some of whom belong to the elite Black Tigers.
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14 civilians arrested in Katunayake HSZ

[TamilNet, Monday, 26 May 2008, 09:25 GMT]
Fourteen civilians including eight women, majority of them Tamils, were taken into custody in a joint cordon and search conducted by the Sri Lanka Army (SLA), Sri Lanka Air Force (SLAF) and police on Sunday in the high security zone of Katunayake.
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Pillayan group supporters attack Muslim traders in Thaazhangkudaa

[TamilNet, Sunday, 25 May 2008, 07:40 GMT]
Supporters of Shanthan, the key TMVP Pillayan group operative killed Thursday in Kaaththankudi, attacked Saturday around 1:00 p.m Muslim traders from Kaththaankudi at Thazhalngkuda area in Kaaththaankudi police division in Batticaloa district, sources in Batticaloa said. Meanwhile, Ea’raavoor police had chased a group of Muslim youths who tried to attack the Tamils who had gone to Ea’ravvoor for purchase provisions Saturday, the sources added. Tension prevails both in Batticaloa and Ea’raavoor following these incidents.
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Shifts in world order alters dynamics of Sri Lanka’s conflict - paper

[TamilNet, Saturday, 24 May 2008, 12:14 GMT]
Whether Sri Lanka is or isn’t on the UN Human Rights Council is an irrelevancy as far as international dimensions of the island’s conflict are concerned, the Tamil Guardian newspaper argued this week. “Rather than a ‘universal’ principle, the concept of ‘human rights’ has, in actuality, served mainly as a tool for the West-led international community to (re)order the world,” the paper said. Meanwhile, the rise of new poles in the international system is proving a challenge for the West’s post-Cold War efforts to construct a liberal order, the newspaper said in another recent editorial.
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TNA condemns Mu'rika'ndi killings

[TamilNet, Friday, 23 May 2008, 18:27 GMT]
Tamil National Alliance (The Illankai Tamil Arasu Kadchi) in a press release issued Friday condemned the killing of civilians in Mu'rika'ndi claymeor attack, and urged the International community "to take necessary measures to insist the Sri Lankan Government to stop its terrorist attack on Tamil civilians," and to restore the normalcy by withdrawing the security forces from the NorthEast.
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Ground facts, Rights lobby cause Sri Lanka's UN debacle

[TamilNet, Thursday, 22 May 2008, 00:27 GMT]
Despite determined lobbying by Colombo during and prior to the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) session at the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, the stark history of gross rights violations by Sri Lanka Security forces, the unfolding ground situation including the exit of International Independent Group of Eminent Persons (IIGEP) from rights monitoring from the island, and intense lobbying by several Rights organization including three Peace Nobel laureates, have led to the ignominous defeat of Sri Lanka Wednesday in securing the sought after coveted spot in the Human Rights Council of the UN.
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International Law, Human Rights will salute Tamil Statehood- Fein

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 20 May 2008, 21:52 GMT]
Quoting the words in the American declaration of Independence, “[b]ut when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce [a people] under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security,” Bruce Fein, Washington-based attorney for a Tamil Activist Group, and Chairman of the American Freedom Agenda, said Tuesday that Tamil Statehood is the immediate answer to save innocent lives, and that “[a]n international consensus on statehood would bring the war to a close, as it did in Kosovo.”
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SLA, Police complicit in white van abductions- SL Minister

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 20 May 2008, 02:18 GMT]
"I have received information that Sri Lanka Police personnel and Sri Lanka Army (SLA) soldiers were involved in several white van abductions. Reluctance of the Inspector General of Police (IGP) and other law enforcement officials to take timely steps to investigate these crimes is clear evidence of widespread violations of human rights and breakdown of law and order," said Sri Lankan Deputy Minister for Vocational Training and Industrial Education, P. Rathakrishnan, during a meeting with the relatives of the disappeared held late last week at the Colombo 14 offices of the Upcountry People's Front (UPF), Tamil daily Thinakkural reported in the Sunday edition.
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5 Tamils arrested in Minuwangoda

[TamilNet, Friday, 16 May 2008, 17:25 GMT]
Five Tamil youths taken into custody in a cordon and search operation conducted in Minuwangoda Monday from dusk to dawn are still being detained in the police station and being interrogated, media sources said. The arrested youths are residents of other districts, and were visiting Minuwangoda when they were detained.
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Pillayan sworn in as CM for Eastern Province

[TamilNet, Friday, 16 May 2008, 14:16 GMT]
Sivanesathurai Chandrakanthan alias Pillayan, the de-facto leader of the paramilitary-cum-political party, the TMVP, was sworn in as the Chief Minister for Eastern Province as M.L.A.M Hisbullah, who was competing with Chandrakanthan for the CM post, announced that he and two of his elected associates had decided to function separately. Mr. Hizbullah, who claimed that the swearing-in was unconstitutional boycotted the swearing-in ceremony which took place at the Sri Lankan Presidential Secretariat around 6:30 p.m. in front of the Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa.
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'India gives full blessings to eliminate LTTE,' says SL Prime Minister

[TamilNet, Friday, 16 May 2008, 11:50 GMT]
Sri Lanka's Prime Minister Ratnasiri Wickramanayaka, in a special interview to Thinakkural, a Colombo based Tamil daily, on Friday, claimed that the Indian government had given "full blessings" to the government of Mahinda Rajapaksa to "eliminate the LTTE." Mr. Wickramanayaka further proclaimed that there was no "ethnic conflict" in Sri Lanka. "The LTTE should lay their arms down if they want peace talks. We are not prepared for talks with them in the meantime," he further said.
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8 Tamil youths arrested in Wattegama

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 13 May 2008, 10:46 GMT]
Eight Tamils youths were taken into custody by Sri Lanka police and Sri Lanka Army (SLA) when they conducted a cordon and search in Puthukaadu area in Wattegama police division in Kandy district Sunday night.
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2 Jaffna youths, one Up-Country youth abducted in Colombo

[TamilNet, Monday, 12 May 2008, 17:59 GMT]
Three Tamil youths, two of them from of Jaffna and one from Badulla were abducted on Saturday from their lodges located along Kathiresan Street in Fort area in Colombo by unidentified armed men. The two youths from Jaffna had been staying in Colombo to go abroad and the upcountry Tamil youth had been a betel vendor.
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10 Tamils arrested in Gampaha, Badulla

[TamilNet, Monday, 12 May 2008, 09:56 GMT]
Ten Tamil civilians were arrested in separate cordon and search operations conducted by the police and the Sri Lanka Army in Gampaha in the western province and Badulla in Uva province during the weekend. They are being detained in respective police stations and being interrogated by the Terrorist Intelligence Division as they failed to prove their identity and to reasons for their stay, Police said.
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Geopolitics shape Sri Lanka’s conflict - study

[TamilNet, Monday, 12 May 2008, 06:12 GMT]
Politics between powerful states have always been integral to the dynamics of war and peace in Sri Lanka, several contributors to a collected volume exploring the international dimensions of the island’s protracted conflict say. The study by the Centre for Just Peace and Democracy (CJPD) published this year comprises papers presented by academics and analysts at a conference held in Switzerland last June along with extracts of the subsequent discussions.
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61 Tamils still held in Colombo, 254 remain in Boosa

[TamilNet, Sunday, 11 May 2008, 11:13 GMT]
About 61 Tamil civilians arrested in Colombo in several cordon and search operations last few weeks are still being detained in several police stations in Colombo, civil society sources said. 25 are being detained in police stations at Dehiwala, Wellawatte and Kohuwela, 15 at Weliveriya, and 21 are held in Kotahena. All detainees had valid national identity cards, but were taken into custody because of their Tamil nationality, media reports said quoting complaints forwarded by their relatives to P.Radhakrishnan, Colombo district parliamentarian representing the Upcountry Peoples Front (UPF).
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UPFA wins 'rigged' EPC election

[TamilNet, Sunday, 11 May 2008, 05:40 GMT]
Sri Lanka's President Mahinda Rajapaksa's ruling UPFA alliance wins the Eastern Provincial Council (EPC) election with 18 seats and 2 bonus seats in the election held on Saturday with widespread rigging. The opposition UNP-SLMC alliance receives 15 seats, 1 seat for the JVP and 1 seat for Tamizh Democratic National Alliance. Meanwhile The Campaign for Free and Fair Elections (CaFFE) observed that the Eastern Provincial election, was not at all ‘free and fair’. Despite the rigging, the opposition UNP-SLMC alliance wins the Trincomalee district where it had promised to resettle displaced Tamils in Champoor.
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