Civilian killings soaring under Rajapakse - LTTE

[TamilNet, Monday, 18 September 2006, 19:26 GMT]
Pointing out that the killings of Tamil civilians by Sri Lankan security forces and Army-backed paramilitary groups have shot up since President Mahinda Rajapakse assumed power last year, the Liberation Tigers said this week that in keeping with the agenda of Sinhala extremist forces, Rajapakse is determined to pursue the military option to the ethnic conflict. “All attempts by the LTTE to value, abide by and protect the CFA have been undermined by the military option pursued by the Rajapakse regime,” the LTTE said in a statement Monday.
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Bodies of two slain aid workers exhumed

[TamilNet, Saturday, 16 September 2006, 22:04 GMT]
Investigators began exhumation of bodies of seventeen aid workers of the Action Contre La Faim (ACF-Action against Hunger) who were killed in execution-style in Muttur. Two bodies were exhumed on the first day in the Trincomalee Hindu Cemetery in the presence of the Anuradhapura Additional Magistrate. ACF officials and relatives of those killed, legal sources said.
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Tamil Councillors to stage peace vigils across London boroughs

[TamilNet, Saturday, 16 September 2006, 06:58 GMT]
British Tamil Councillors and Associates (BTCA) will be holding peace vigils across 32 London boroughs on the Inernational Day of Peace on Thursday, September 21, urging for "Peace with Dignity" for the Tamils of Sri Lanka, the cross-party Council members from Greater London region said in a Press Release. The organisation has called for a "peaceful resolution that recognizes the Tamil people's right to self-determination and fulfills the legitimate aspirations."
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SLN arrests 70 Trinco Tamils in Talaimannar coast

[TamilNet, Friday, 15 September 2006, 11:04 GMT]
Sri Lanka Navy (SLN) Thursday evening arrested seventy members of seventeen Tamil families from Trincomalee district when they were waiting for fishing boats along the coast of Talaimannar to flee to South India, civil sources in Mannar said. The SLN also arrested two boatmen who were to take the refugees by Mannar Sea. The arrested civilians were handed over to Talaimannar Police for inquiry by the SLN, police sources said.
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Terrorised Tamil traders flee to India - report

[TamilNet, Thursday, 14 September 2006, 12:20 GMT]
Several Tamil traders and businessmen have fled Sri Lanka following a spate of killings and abductions, IANS reported Thursday quoting officials and refugees. Sinhalese gangs in Trincomalee are targeting prominent Tamils and many ordinary Tamils in the capital were gripped by a "fear psychosis" the agency reported, quoting activists as saying the recent violence has led to one of the most traumatic periods for the island's Tamil community.
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Kandy Police arrest 12 youths

[TamilNet, Saturday, 09 September 2006, 06:30 GMT]
Tweleve youths were arrested and detained on suspicion by Kandy police during a cordon and search operation Thursday afternoon. The police sources said 10 of the youths were Tamils and the other two were Sinhalese.
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Eight persons arrested in search operation in Madawachchi

[TamilNet, Friday, 08 September 2006, 12:13 GMT]
Eight civilians including Tamils and Muslims were arrested at Ikkirigollawa village in Anuradhapura district in the North Central Province in a seven hour combined cordon and search operation by the Sri Lanka Army (SLA), Police and home guards conducted on Friday morning from 5 a.m. till noon.
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Humanitarian crisis precipitated by twin-track strategy

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 05 September 2006, 22:03 GMT]
An estimated 60,000 Tamils displaced by Sri Lankan military attacks in the eastern province are caught in a humanitarian crisis which aid workers say is being deliberately deepened by the Colombo government. The most recent displacements in the east join tens of thousands of people forced to flee their homes by military attacks in Wanni and the northern Jaffna.
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Tamil parties protest against abductions in Colombo

[TamilNet, Saturday, 02 September 2006, 18:05 GMT]
Representatives of Tamil political parties addressing a press briefing held Friday in Colombo Holiday-In-Hotel said they are going to hold awareness meetings among Tamil people in Colombo from next week against the increase of abduction by the intelligence service of the Sri Lanka Army (SLA). They stressed that several Tamil youths in Colombo had been abducted by SLA intelligence unit in past and immediate action should be taken to stop this.
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Sri Lanka rationale for offensive ‘spurious, deceptive’ - LTTE

[TamilNet, Saturday, 02 September 2006, 03:59 GMT]
Dismissing the Sri Lankan military’s justification for its latest major offensive against the LTTE in Sampoor as “spurious” and “deceptive,” the Tigers’ political representative in the area said the LTTE first fired on the naval base in Trincomalee when resisting the SLA’s initial offensive in late July.
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Sri Lanka's military conducting slow pogrom - paper

[TamilNet, Friday, 01 September 2006, 10:36 GMT]
The deliberate displacement of over 160,000 Tamils by Sri Lankan military offensives and attacks this year combined with the purposeful blocking of food, medicine and relief supplies amounts to a 'slow pogrom' of the Tamils, the Tamil Guardian newspaper argued in its latest editorial. "Whilst trotting out the tired counter-insurgency rhetoric of 'hearts and minds' and a glib insistence that Tigers, not Tamils, are the target, Sri Lanka's military has always been ready to punish the Tamils for the LTTE's violence," the paper said.
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SLN arrested fleeing Sri Lankan Tamils in Mannar Sea

[TamilNet, Thursday, 31 August 2006, 12:34 GMT]
Sri Lanka Navy (SLN) Wednesday night around 11 p.m. arrested 18 Tamil civilians with four Indian boatmen while they were fleeing to seek refuge in Tamilnadu from Talaimannar coast. They were handed over to the Talaimannar Police Thursday morning. SLN has detained the Indian boat in its custody.
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British Tamils protest against Rajapakse’s London visit

[TamilNet, Thursday, 31 August 2006, 11:53 GMT]
More than one thousand British Tamils and UK residents, Wednesday held a demonstration in front of the British Parliament in London from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. protesting against the visit of the Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapakse to London, and condemning the Sri Lankan Government for violations of the human rights of the Tamil people in Sri Lanka, the organizers of the rally said.
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SLMM blames Sri Lanka military for aid workers’ massacre

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 30 August 2006, 11:15 GMT]
International ceasefire monitors Wednesday blamed the Sri Lankan military for the massacre of 17 local aid workers from international group Action Contre La Faim earlier this month, Reuters reported, quoting Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission (SLMM). Outgoing SLMM head Ulf Henricsson, called the killings a "committed act of assassination" and "one of the most serious recent crimes against humanitarian aid workers worldwide," AP reported.
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Judicious political pressure saves journalist

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 30 August 2006, 07:42 GMT]
Political pressure from Sri Lanka's main opposition United National Party (UNP), parties allied with Sri Lanka President Mahinda Rajapakse, including the paramilitary Eelam People’s Democratic Party (EPDP) and the timely action by the top leadership of the Asian Broadcasting Coorperation to mobilise political pressure saved the life of Kuruparan Nadarajah, the Tamil news manager of Sooriyan FM, who was being interrogated after being abducted by the Special Counter-terrorism Unit of Sri Lankan military intelligence, sources said.
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‘War not way to peace’ - India

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 29 August 2006, 04:58 GMT]
As Sri Lanka’s military launched a new offensive against the Liberation Tigers this week, India re-iterated that war was not the way to resolve the island’s conflict. “We do not believe that war is the way out...We do not think violence, whether from LTTE's side or an armed conflict, can resolve any issue,” press reports quoted India’s Foreign Secretary Shyam Saran as saying in Delhi Monday. Meanwhile, The Hindu newspaper reported that, worried over the violence in Sri Lanka, peace-facilitator Norway and India “are engaged in quiet consultations to defuse the situation.”
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Only a phased peace process will work - Uyangoda

[TamilNet, Monday, 28 August 2006, 06:10 GMT]
A lasting solution to Sri Lanka’s ethnic question can only emerge out of a protracted peace process with interim agreements, rather than a quest for an up-front final solution, one of the country’s leading political scientists argued this week. "Protracted ethnic conflict always requires a protracted peace process. The peace process should [aim] for an interim settlement rather than a big-bang solution. We may have to go through a series of interim managements," said Professor Jayadeva Uyangoda, Head of Department of Political Science and Public Policy, University of Colombo.
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76 Tamils arrested in Colombo

[TamilNet, Monday, 28 August 2006, 05:27 GMT]
Seventy-six Tamils, including 8 women were arrested during a combined search operation by Sri Lankan Military troopers and Police in Colombo and its suburbs, Sunday. Road blocks were put up on main roads leading to Colombo centre and all vehicles were throughly checked, police said.
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Rajapakse invites UNP as Norway, India meet Wickremesinghe

[TamilNet, Sunday, 27 August 2006, 06:43 GMT]
Sri Lanka’s President Mahinda Rajapakse on Friday invited the main opposition United National Party (UNP) to join his government, press reports said Sunday. In a letter to the UNP leadership, President Rajapakse had called on the opposition to join his Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) led government so as to resolve the ‘crisis’ in Sri Lanka, The Sunday Leader broadsheet said. Days after two up-country Tamil parties joined the government, President Rajapakse is also courting the main Muslim party, the Sri Lanka Muslim Congress (SLMC), the paper added.
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WFP says food situation ‘critical’ - amid MoD embargo

[TamilNet, Sunday, 27 August 2006, 06:34 GMT]
The food situation in LTTE-controlled areas is becoming ‘critical’ the World Food Program (WFP) announced Friday, as Sri Lanka’s Defence Ministry maintained its blockade. “In spite of high-level negotiations between the UN and the Government, the issue of access to areas not under Government control has not been resolved,” the WFP said. WFP said its staff “are [still] operating inside both the Vanni and Jaffna, but all supplies are running low in these areas due to the closing of the access roads by the Ministry of Defence.”
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