17 Tamils arrested in Puttalam

[TamilNet, Friday, 28 September 2007, 08:22 GMT]
Seventeen Tamil civilians were taken into custody in a cordon and search operation conducted in Puttalam town in the northwestern province from around 3 a.m. till about 9 a.m. Friday by the Sri Lanka Army (SLA) and Police. All the detainees are residents of north and east provinces, sources said.
Full story >>

12 Tamils arrested in Gampaha

[TamilNet, Thursday, 27 September 2007, 02:55 GMT]
The Sri Lanka Army (SLA) and police took 12 Tamil civilians into custody in Gampaha town in Colombo district Wednesday in a cordon and search operation. Police said the detainees were taken in for questioning as they failed to prove their identity and the reason for their stay in the location.
Full story >>

Out of town residents in Homagama ordered to register

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 25 September 2007, 19:00 GMT]
Sri Lanka Police has issued warnings to residents of Homagama, a town in the Colombo district in western province Tuesday not to allow outsiders to stay in their houses even temporarily without registering with the closest police station, sources in Colombo said. Security officials said that about 2000 persons from outside Homagama have been temporarily staying in Homagama town and surrounding areas.
Full story >>

Tamil sovereignty, basis of peace talks - LTTE

[TamilNet, Monday, 24 September 2007, 17:37 GMT]
Liberation Tigers of Tamileelam (LTTE), in a statement issued Monday, urged the UN General Assembly which has gathered for its 62nd session in New York, USA, to recognize the concept of the sovereignty of the Tamil people and support the peace process in accordance with this principle. The LTTE statement characterized the confidence of some members of the International Community on Sri Lanka's latest All Party Representative Committee (APRC) which has not brought any constructive outcome to date, as a misplaced confidence.
Full story >>

“Avoid unitary, avoid states” - United States ambassador

[TamilNet, Saturday, 22 September 2007, 16:10 GMT]
Addressing a seminar on "Sri Lanka: the Way Forward," in Colombo on Friday, organized by Fullbright Association, the U.S. Ambassador for Sri Lanka, Robert Blake, categorically stated that Sri Lanka's conflict cannot be won by military means. He said whatever the Sri Lankan government achieved in terms of military victories in the last several months, were merely "tactical" successes. The Ambassador who didn't want to mince words, cautioned the Colombo government against possible failures, hoped on All Party Representative Committee (APRC) and harped on development especially in the East, but dodged words when it came to the political model for resolving Sri Lanka's ethnic crisis.
Full story >>

World must rein in Sri Lankan state – TNA

[TamilNet, Saturday, 22 September 2007, 11:13 GMT]
Protesting that the Sri Lankan government had discarded negotiating a settlement to the island’s ethnic conflict, the Tamil National Alliance (TNA)urged the international community to take a principled stand on the Tamil people’s right to self determination. Outlining the humanitarian and human rights crisis that has emerged in the wake of Colombo’s military project, the TNA also argued: “the Sri Lankan State will not conform to international norms or standards. It is only by the International Community … taking meaningful steps, can the Sri Lankan State be made to realize that it cannot continue with the present disastrous trend.”
Full story >>

2 Tamils shot dead in Trincomalee

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 19 September 2007, 21:05 GMT]
Unidentified armed men shot dead two Tamil civilians Tuesday night at Panku'lam, a predominant Tamil village in Trincomalee district. Panku'lam, located 24 km northwest of Trincomalee town along Trincomalee-Auradapura road, comes under Moraweva Divisional Secretariat.
Full story >>

Naziism, apartheid alive in Sri Lanka- US editorial

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 18 September 2007, 14:52 GMT]
Comparing the eviction of more than 500 Tamils from Colombo to Naziism and apartheid, and "one part of a long genocidal streak," an editorial that appeared in Cincinnati Enquirer's Tuesday edition, said that inaction on allowing US government's funding the Sri Lankan military, will imply not just neutrality, but complicity.
Full story >>

Sign of the times in Tamil Nadu

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 18 September 2007, 00:40 GMT]
Veteran Tamil Nadu activist Pazha Nedumaran’s attempted crossing of the Palk Straits in a bid to deliver emergency relief to Sri Lanka’s Tamils was thwarted last week when he and hundreds of volunteers were arrested. Whilst the attempted crossing and its ‘failure’ has been dismissed, especially in Sri Lanka’s south, as a stunt by mavericks on the fringe of Tamil Nadu’s politics, the event has both highlighted and boosted resurgent support in the south Indian state for the Sri Lankan Tamils’ cause.
Full story >>

Swiss Tamil children hone drawing skills

[TamilNet, Monday, 17 September 2007, 02:21 GMT]
758 Tamil children, ranging in ages from five to ninteen, from most of the 23 cantons in Switzerland, participated in an art competition held Sunday, organized by Swiss Tamil Educational Service (TES), a volunteer organization administered by expatriate Tamils, sources in Switzerland said.
Full story >>

46 civilians arrested in Dehiwala, Gampaha

[TamilNet, Sunday, 16 September 2007, 11:15 GMT]
Seventeen civilians, majority of them Tamils, were arrested in a combined cordon and search operation conducted by the Sri Lanka Army (SLA) and police in Dehiwala in Colombo district from Saturday night to Sunday dawn, sources in Colombo said. Police said the suspects were taken into custody on receipt of information that movement of some strangers in the area had been noted.


Full story >>

Pirapaharan pays homage to Thileepan on 20th anniversary

[TamilNet, Saturday, 15 September 2007, 13:11 GMT]
Leader of Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, Velupillai Pirapaharan, paid homage to Lt. Col. Thileepan (Rasiah Parthipan), at an undisclosed location in Vanni Saturday. Thileepan, LTTE's political wing leader for the Jaffna district, who fasted unto death in a twelve days' campaign putting forward five demands to the Indian government to meet the aspirations of the Tamil people soon after the signing of the Indo-Sri Lankan agreement in 1987.
Full story >>

Norwegian Tamils protest against Sri Lanka Rights violations

[TamilNet, Friday, 14 September 2007, 12:27 GMT]
Around 200 Norwegian Tamils of Norwegian Tamils Federation (NTF) gathered in front of Norway Foreign Ministry in Oslo Friday between 10:00 to 11:00 a.m, before a scheduled meeting of the Sri Lanka Minister of Human Rights Mahinda Samarasinghe with Norway Foreign Ministry Officials, urging Norway to exert pressure on the Government of Sri Lanka (GoSL) to immediately stop the ethnic cleansing of Tamils in Sri Lanka, sources in Oslo said. Norwegian Special Envoy to Sri Lanka Peace Process, Jon Hanssen Bauer addressed the demonstrators before receiving a memorandum from the protesters.


Full story >>

12 Tamil detainees released from Boosa camp

[TamilNet, Thursday, 13 September 2007, 17:49 GMT]
Twelve Tamil detainees, six from Mannaar and the other six from Wattala area in Colombo district, were released from Boosa detention camp Wednesday, legal sources in Colombo said. The said detainees were taken into custody several months earlier and sent to Boosa detention camp under the Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA).
Full story >>

Tamil Left in Sri Lanka revisited

[TamilNet, Thursday, 13 September 2007, 02:12 GMT]
"The majoritarian nationalists have reframed the national question as a ‘terrorist problem’ and displaced it from the historical and political domain to which it belongs. They have couched their call for a military solution in a discourse of ‘sovereignty and territorial integrity’ of the majoritarian unitary state and linked it to the so called global war on terror at the same time. Now it is official that the main problem is ‘terrorism’ which has to be defeated before any ‘political solution’ can be found. The real meaning of this position is that the military solution is the political solution," writes Professor N. Shanmugaratnam, in his foreword to Ravi Vaitheespara's book on Tamil Left.
Full story >>

Tamil Nadu police arrests Nedumaran for trying to sail food to Jaffna

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 12 September 2007, 16:42 GMT]
Attempt made by Pazha. Nedumaran, the leader of Tamils Nationalist Movement (TNM), and around 500 of his party members to take essential food items to Jaffna peninsula residents by sea from Nakapaddinam was stopped Wednesday when Tamil Nadu police arrested Nedumaran with his followers, sources in Naakapaddinam said. Nedumaran had earlier announced that he will attempt to take food items across the seas as the Government of India had refused give him permission to send the items donated by people of Tamil Nadu through the International Committee of Red Cross (ICRC) in India.
Full story >>

Colombo unwilling or unable to contain Rights violations- HRW

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 12 September 2007, 11:18 GMT]
During the launch of the Report “Return to War: Human Rights Under Siege” in the European Parliament Tuesday, the Human Rights Watch (HRW), a leading Rights organization based in New York, said after the report was published in the first week of August, disappearances especially in Jaffna have continued, condition of internally displaced have reached alarming levels, climate of impunity continued to prevail, and the Attorney General’s office, have not effectively investigated human rights violations or brought perpetrators to justice. HRW also condemned Colombo's dismissal of international critics as “traitors,” and “terrorist sympathizers.”
Full story >>

Paduvaankarai IDPs' cattle to be appropriated – Batticaloa MP

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 12 September 2007, 09:27 GMT]
Sri Lanka Defence Ministry has ordered the transfer of nearly 20 thousand cattle belonging to the Internally Displaced People (IDP) of Paduvaagkarai in Batticaloa, to Polanaruwa National Cattle Development Centre, citing danger to the Sri Lanka Army (SLA) camps located on Chengkaladi-Badulla A5 road, Batticaloa Tamil National Alliance (TNA) parliamentarian Ariyanenthiran said.
Full story >>

SLA said to be behind house burglaries in Nelliyadi

[TamilNet, Monday, 10 September 2007, 01:18 GMT]
Five houses belonging to Tamils inside a high security area fully protected by Sri Lanka Army (SLA) sentries were burgled during curfew hours at 8:45 p.m. Saturday, civil society sources in Vadamaraadchi said. Two house owners were injured during the burglary, and cash and valuables with an estimated value of more than Rs 5m were stolen during the incident. Local residents accused SLA soldiers and members of the SLA intelligence wing of complicity in the burglaries, sources said.
Full story >>

India, Sri Lanka form joint defence panel - report

[TamilNet, Thursday, 06 September 2007, 18:15 GMT]
India and Sri Lanka have formed a high-level, joint defence panel following a meeting in New Delhi between top officials of the two countries on September 3 and 4, the Hindustan Times reported Wednesday quoting a release from the Sri Lankan Presidential Secretariat.
Full story >>