Thamilchelvan funeral Monday

[TamilNet, Sunday, 04 November 2007, 23:07 GMT]
The state funeral of S. P. Thamilchelvan, the head of the Liberation Tigers’ Political Wing and the movement’s Chief Negotiator, who was killed Friday in a targeted airstrike by the Sri Lanka Air Force (SLAF) will be held in Kilinochchi Monday, LTTE officials in Vanni told TamilNet. Tens of thousands of people paid their respects Saturday and Sunday as Mr Thamilchelvan’s body was taken in procession to the twelve sectors (Koaddams) of the LTTE-administered Vanni. In a notice emailed Sunday, LTTE published an email address for condolence messages to be sent.
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Bauer pays tributes to Thamilchelvan

[TamilNet, Sunday, 04 November 2007, 15:45 GMT]
Jon Hanssen Bauer, the Norwegian special envoy for the peace process in Sri Lanka, on Saturday paid tributes to Liberation Tigers Political Head and Chief Negotiator S. P. Thamilchelvan. Stating that Mr. Thamilchelvan's role was important not only for Norway, but also for other countries, Mr. Bauer said Thamilchelvan was a patient man in explaining the rightful demands of Tamils and he was a moderate person within the LTTE, one who sought political alternatives.
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Peoples of 'historical waters' and Indian security

[TamilNet, Sunday, 04 November 2007, 12:14 GMT]
Due to improved understanding and collaboration between the navies of India and Sri Lanka, and enhanced sea monitoring power, India need not to worry about repercussions of the ongoing war in Sri Lanka, said L. V. Sarath Babu, the Chief Staff Officer, Eastern Command of the Indian Navy to media men at Rameasvaram on Friday. The night of the same day, 97 Tamil Nadu fishermen, were arrested by the Sri Lanka Navy off the waters of Jaffna. This is an illustrative example of the wide gap between the security concerns of the two governments and the aspirations of the peoples they claim to represent.
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'Sinhala nation has killed our dove of peace' - LTTE Leader Pirapaharan

[TamilNet, Saturday, 03 November 2007, 17:08 GMT]
The Sinhala nation has taken the life of a political leader "deeply loved by the Tamil speaking world" and "greatly respected by the international community," said Velupillai Pirapaharan, the leader of Liberation Tigers, in a message to the Tamil people on Saturday, following the demise of LTTE's Political Head and Chief Negotiator, Brigadier S. P. Thamilchelvan. "I raised him as a great commander, an unparalleled political head, a diplomat who communicated with the entire world, and a skilled negotiator," Mr. Pirapaharan said. "Buried within his beautiful smile, I recognized, right from the beginning, a thousand profound meanings, his abilities, and his leadership qualities."
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US Senator expresses concern of Sri Lanka's rights violations

[TamilNet, Saturday, 03 November 2007, 13:51 GMT]
Advocating for "international human rights field presence" in Sri Lanka, and asserting "there is no military solution to Sri Lankan conflict," the Democratic Senator from Vermont and Chairman of Senate Judiciary Committee, Sen. Patrick Leahy, in a statement issued at the Senate sessions on 2nd November said: " We have been increasingly concerned with reports of abuses by Sri Lankan government forces - not from the LTTE or their supporters as some have inaccurately claimed, but from the United Nations, the Department of State, and international human rights organizations."
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Karunanidhi laments the death of Thamilchelvan

[TamilNet, Saturday, 03 November 2007, 11:43 GMT]
Seen as a significant gesture, the Tamil Nadu Chief Minister and veteran leader of Tamils, M. Karunanidhi, condoled the demise of Thamilchelvan on Saturday. Kalaignar Karunanidhi, quite typical of his style, used the medium of poetry and pun to pass a subtle message that the Tamils of Sri Lanka haven't gone brotherless. The Chief Minister's emotion-filled condolence gains significance in the background of a prevailing impression that the government of India is fully backing the war efforts of the government of Sri Lanka aiming for a military solution to the ethnic crisis in the island.
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27 civilians arrested in Pussellawa

[TamilNet, Saturday, 03 November 2007, 09:00 GMT]
27 civilians were taken into custody at Pussellawa, a town in the Nuwara Eliya district in the upcountry in a cordon and search operation conducted by the Sri Lanka Army Saturday from 4 a.m. till 11 a.m. Majority of them are Tamils and residents of northeast province, civil sources said.
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56 girls arrested at Galkissa

[TamilNet, Friday, 02 November 2007, 17:45 GMT]
56 girls, majority of them Tamils, were taken into custody in a combined cordon and search operation conducted by the Sri Lanka Army (SLA) and Sri Lanka Air Force (SLAF) Friday morning till noon at Galkissa, a town in the Colombo district. Majority of them are residents of northeast province. Some of them are working in businesses establishments, civil sources said.
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"Separation inevitable if power continues to polarize with ethnic hegemony" - Mano Ganesan

[TamilNet, Thursday, 11 October 2007, 13:07 GMT]
Mano Ganesan MP, the leader of the Western Province People's Front (WPPF) and the convener of the Civil Monitoring Committee (CMC), engaged in monitoring abductions, addressing the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Louise Arbour, at the UN office in Colombo, on Thursday, said that the Tamils would be forced to seek separation as the only alternative if the Sri Lankan government failed to satisfy the "Sri Lankan dream," which he described as a dreamland with political power sharing between all the ethnic communities, where there are no places for war, abductions, extra judicial killings and where there is no room for polarization of political power with ethnic hegemony.
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Welikade Tamil prisoners agitate to meet UN official

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 10 October 2007, 02:44 GMT]
Eighty six Tamil detainees in Welikade maximum security prison and forty Tamil prisoners from Magazine prison staged a token hunger strike Tuesday demanding that Sri Lanka Government arrange High Commissioner of Human Rights in the United Nations, Ms Louise Arbour, who is currently on a fact finding mission to Sri Lanka, to visit the detainees in the prison. The detainees said Ms Arbour should be told of the prison conditions, and the extended incarceration without the right to a trial, civil society sources in Colombo said.
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Tigers urge UN Human Rights Commissioner to visit Vanni

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 09 October 2007, 22:57 GMT]
Welcoming the "timely mission" by United Nations High Commissioner of Human Rights, Louise Arbour, to investigate human rights violations in Sri Lanka, Liberation Tigers Human Rights spokesperson N. Selvy, Tuesday said the Tamils were expecting the UN High Commissioner to visit the LTTE administered Vanni to get an absolute assessment of the Human Rights violations perpetrated by the Sri Lankan military and its paramilitaries in the Tamil homeland. Tamils, as a people, were disappointed as "the main violator, the Sri Lankan government itself," was exercising control over the itinerary of the visiting High Commissioner, Ms. Selvy said.
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MP condemns SLA ban on construction of houses for Batticaloa IDPs

[TamilNet, Monday, 08 October 2007, 10:41 GMT]
Batticaloa District Tamil National Alliance (TNA) parliamentarian, S. Jeyananthamoorthy, speaking to media this week, condemned the ban imposed by Sri Lanka Army (SLA ) for constructing permanent houses for Internally Displaced People (IDPs) at Naavaladi Junction within Vaaharai District Secretary's administrative area in Batticaloa District.
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48 Tamils arrested in Wellampitya

[TamilNet, Saturday, 06 October 2007, 16:12 GMT]
Forty-eight Tamil civilians were arrested in a combined cordon and search operation conducted by the Sri Lanka Army (SLA) and police at Wellampitya, a town in Colombo district, from morning till noon Saturday. The Terrist Intelligence Division (TID) is interrogating those arrested at the Wellampitya police station, sources said.
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6 Tamils arrested in Gampaha

[TamilNet, Saturday, 06 October 2007, 11:48 GMT]
Six Tamil civilians were taken into custody by the Sri Lanka Army (SLA) in a cordon and search operation conducted in Gampaha town, situated 24 km northeast of Colombo, from Friday night till dawn of Saturday. The detainees were all staying with their relatives and lodges at that time of arrest.
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US expresses concern over rights abuses in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Friday, 05 October 2007, 23:08 GMT]
U.S. Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs, R. Nicholas Burns, expressed "serious concern over credible reports of severe human rights abuses in Jaffna...," during a meeting with Sri Lanka's foreign minister Bogollagama in Washington D.C. Thursday, a press release issued by the State Department said.
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U.S. expresses rights concern, urges progress on power-sharing proposal

[TamilNet, Friday, 05 October 2007, 17:32 GMT]
U.S. Under Secretary of State Nicholas Burns has expressed serious concern over credible reports of continued severe human rights abuses in Jaffna and other parts of Sri Lanka and ongoing threats to freedom of the press when he met Sri Lankan Foreign Minister Rohitha Bogollagama in Washington, D.C., on Thursday, according to a media note released by the U.S. Department of State.
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Gotabhaya bans transport of livestock from abandoned Tamil homes in Batticaloa

[TamilNet, Thursday, 04 October 2007, 08:55 GMT]
Acting on a complaint made by Ameer Ali, Sri Lankan minister of disaster relief services, Gotabhaya Rajapaksa, the Sri Lankan defense secretary, has instructed teh Batticaloa district commanding officer of Sri Lanka Army (SLA), Superintendents of Police and officers of Special Task Force (STF) to ban the transport of livestock belonging to Tamils from the areas in Batticaloa district, recently brought under the control of the SLA. Tamils in these areas have repeatedly lodged complaint with Mr. Ameer Ali that cattle from their homes were being systematically stolen out of the district by paramilitaries and Sri Lankan soldiers and sold in Sinhala areas of the Polonnaruwa district.
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International Chakkadaththaar

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 02 October 2007, 13:38 GMT]
The main reason why Sri Lanka’s ethnic conflict couldn’t be resolved all these decades was that it was approached as a terrorist issue. The approach, which served the convenience and deceit of the Sinhala politicians, was endorsed by the world system, because everybody had skeletons in their cupboards. It was a general debility of international polity and political ideologies to resolve situations similar to that of Sri Lanka. As a result, the mainstream international system has led the world into an Age of Paranoia. The bigger the State, the bigger is the paranoia, writes Opinion Columnist Ampalam.
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UNP drops federalism

[TamilNet, Monday, 01 October 2007, 11:15 GMT]
The decision by Sri Lanka’s main opposition United National Party (UNP) to ditch the federal constitutional model as a solution to the island’s protracted ethnic conflict makes it the last of the major southern parties to embrace Sinhala nationalism again. In doing so, the former ‘pro-peace’ party may finally have resolved its ethnic dilemma.
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UK terrorism lawyers to explain civil rights

[TamilNet, Friday, 28 September 2007, 15:53 GMT]
Leading British terrorism lawyers will Saturday address a public meeting organized by Tamil and other minority community groups in Britain on ‘Anti-Terrorism Legislation, Public Security and Protection of Civil Liberties.’ British Development Minister, Gareth Thomas, will be addressing the event, which members of the public are welcome to participate in, organisationers said. A press note by the Tamil Information Centre (TIC), which is chairing the event, said the meeting will “aim at addressing the fears of the community, and the threat to human rights and civil liberties.”
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