‘Allow aid to displaced’ - Minority Rights Group

[TamilNet, Thursday, 10 August 2006, 16:22 GMT]
Sri Lanka’s ethnic minorities have been the worst affected in the recent surge in violence and both the Sri Lankan government and LTTE must make a greater commitment to safeguard minority rights in their controlled areas and provide equal access to humanitarian assistance, the Minority Rights Group (MRG) said Thursday. MRG called on both sides to give international and local aid agencies unimpeded access to the affected areas and said the aim should be “to facilitate the free return, in safety, of minority communities to their homes as quickly as possible.”
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JVP: ‘wipe out LTTE and its supporters’

[TamilNet, Thursday, 10 August 2006, 14:20 GMT]
Sri Lanka’s ultra-nationalist JVP party has called for the government to “wipe out not ony LTTE but its supporters as well” in a heated debate Thursday over the Trincomalee crisis. Jayantha Wijesekara, JVP MP from Trincomalee district made his comments in support of JVP Propaganda Secretary Wimal Weerawansa, who said that the LTTE areas of Sampur and Maavilaru must be captured by the Sri Lankan military. The Trincomalee situation dominated Thursday’s deliberations in Parliament.
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SLA blocks food convoy to Vaharai

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 09 August 2006, 20:51 GMT]
S.Jeyananthamoorthy, Tamil National Alliance (TNA) Member of Parliament for Batticaloa District, accused the Sri Lankan Army (SLA) for stopping food convey of NGOs to the Internally Displaced People (IDP) in the LTTE controlled Vaharai area and worsening the already dire situation prevailing in Vaharai for essential supplies for the IDPs. Eight lorries carrying food and other essentials were barred from entering Vaharai by soldiers of the Kajuwatta Camp on the orders from Sri Lanka's Ministry of Defence (MoD), civil society sources said.
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Aid massacre ‘result of impunity’ - TRO

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 09 August 2006, 15:37 GMT]
Joining several humanitarian organizations in condemning the massacre of the 17 ACF staff members in Muthur, the Tamil Rehabilitation Organisation (TRO) said the failure to investigate and punish those responsible for attacks on its own aid workers in January 2006 had contributed to a climate of impunity.
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Bodies of 17 NGO workers brought to Trincomalee

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 08 August 2006, 09:01 GMT]
The bodies of 17 persons, 16 Tamils and a Muslim, were brought to the mortuary of the Trincomalee general hospital Tuesday in a lorry from Muthur via Allai-Kantalai road. On the orders of the Sri Lankan authorities, a Sinhalese Judicial Medical Officer (JMO) was brought from Anuradhapura to conduct the post-mortem examinations. One of the victims, Y.Kodeeswaran, was the eldest brother of Y.Hemachchandran, another victim of an execution-style massacre by the Special Task Force (STF), the Sri Lankan counter-insurgency elite force in January this year along the Trincomalee sea beach. A father who was a driver, and his daughter, a hygience promoter, were also among the ACF victims.
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ACF workers, 14 Tamils and a Muslim, lined up and shot - Fact Finding Mission

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 08 August 2006, 07:26 GMT]
"The bodies [of Muthur massacre victims] were all face downwards on the front lawn [of ACF office], seemingly lined up and shot at very close range. The sight was too much to handle," said a Fact Finding Mission of the Consortium of Humanitarian Agencies (CHA) that visited Muthur town Sunday where 14 Tamil and a Muslim worker of Action Against Hunger (Action Contre la Faim, ACF) were allegedly massacred by Sri Lanka Army (SLA). The CHA report further verified that most of the deceased were wearing ACF agency T-shirts. Meanwhile, reports from Trincomalee on Tuesday said 17 bodies of ACF workers, 16 Tamils and a Muslim, were brought to Trincomalee hospital.
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GoSL paying "scant regard" to Norway's peace efforts - LTTE

[TamilNet, Monday, 07 August 2006, 06:39 GMT]
"It is the plea of the Tamil people to the international community that it understands the stark truth behind these actions of the GoSL," the Peace Secretariat of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) said Monday as Norwegian Special Envoy Jon-Hanssen Bauer was scheduled to visit Trincomalee to meet Head of Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission Major General Ulf Henricsson in his final efforts to avert the outbreak of war. The Tigers on Sunday said they considered Sri Lankan forces continued attacks towards the LTTE controlled territory as Declaration of War by Colombo.
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Adrian Wijemanne: The Passage of a Warrior

[TamilNet, Sunday, 06 August 2006, 11:14 GMT]
Adrian Wijemanne, a human rights activist and most eminent Sinhala proponent of Tamils’ right for self-determination in Sri Lanka passed away on July 22nd in London. His funeral took place at the Parish Church of St. Mary & St. Michael, Trumpington, Cambridge. He was 81.
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Facilitator to ensure humanitarian action, sluice gates to be opened

[TamilNet, Sunday, 06 August 2006, 06:15 GMT]
Norwegian Special Envoy Jon-Hanssen Bauer has assured the LTTE leadership that the facilitators would act, within three weeks, to ensure equitable humanitarian assistance as the Tiger leadership told the facilitator that the LTTE would convince the Maavilaru Tamils to re-open the closed sluice gates. The Tigers also said that the Sri Lanka's direct military actions such as air-strikes, artillery attacks and "socalled limited operations" would be regarded as Declaration of War.
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Water war

[TamilNet, Saturday, 05 August 2006, 16:33 GMT]
"Defensive attacks" launched by Liberation Tigers four days ago with the surprise artillery attacks on Trincomalee naval base, and the sweeping attacks on Sri Lanka Army (SLA) camps and positions in Muthur and southern sector of Trincomalee, were interpreted as the Tiger response to the three-month-long humanitarian catastrophe unfolding in Muthur East, where 30 000 civilians were forced to live as Internally Displaced People (IDPs). Supply of drinking water, one of the most basic needs, emerged as a critical issue as wells dried in the hottest spell as August approached, says Trincomalee Parliamentarian K. Thurairatnasingham.
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TRO caring 10 000 IDPs, seeks assistance from ICRC, GoSL, SLMM

[TamilNet, Friday, 04 August 2006, 12:35 GMT]
Tamils Rehabilitation Organisation (TRO) on Thursday said the organisation was taking care of ten thousand IDPs in Trincomalee district. Food and water has been provided by the TRO to the IDPs since 01 August 2006. "Stockpiles of food are running low and TRO is appealing to the ICRC, Government of Sri Lanka, and the SLMM to facilitate the transportation of humanitarian relief to the displaced persons," the organisation said. TRO has also received requests for assistance from the Muslim Council in Kinniya, a community TRO has assisted post-tsunami.
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SLA fires on Ambulance, 3 Tamils killed

[TamilNet, Thursday, 03 August 2006, 06:56 GMT]
Sri Lankan troopers in Seruvila opened fire on an ambulance of the Muttur district hospital, transferring patients to Trincomalee general hospital, through Allai-Kantalai Road, Wednesday. Two Tamil civilians were killed on the spot. The driver of the ambulance who was critically wounded in the shooting succumbed to injuries while being taken to the Colombo general hospital. Sri Lankan Police on Thursday said the ambulance was caught up in a "cross-fire."
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8-year-boy killed in mortar fire in Muttur church, 3 wounded

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 02 August 2006, 10:36 GMT]
An 8-year-old boy was killed on the spot and 3 women were wounded in Muttur town when an artillery fell inside the premises of St. Anthony's Church where more than 600 Tamils have taken refuge since the fighting broke out between the Sri Lanka Army (SLA) and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) last night. The wounded women, unable to be taken to hospital, were being treated at the church as the fighting resumed after a brief lull, civilian sources said.
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Raising Tiger flag not illegal in US - Embassy

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 02 August 2006, 03:00 GMT]
Staff at Sri Lanka state-run daily in Colombo, Daily News, were given a civic lesson when they confronted US Embassy's press officer, Evan Owen, on the legality of American Tamils hoisting the Tamileelam flag in a New York sports festival, and diaspora parents teaching their offsprings Tamil. The press officer responded that hoisting of the Tiger flag had not breached US law, and that "the right to assemble and freedom of speech is upheld," by their [US] constitution, the Daily news reported.
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Military offensive 'disrupted deal with LTTE’

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 01 August 2006, 21:42 GMT]
Sri Lankan military’s offensive in Trincomalee disrupted an agreement which had been reached with the Liberation Tigers to open the closed irrigation canal at Mavil Aaru, the Daily Mirror quoted the Chief Priest of a local Buddhist temple as saying. The ongoing confrontation which has claimed scores of lives could have been avoided, the venerable Saranakeerthi Serunuwera Thera also said. His comments comes days after the chief international truce monitor criticized the Sri Lankan government for launching airstrikes near where he was negotiating with local LTTE leaders to defuse the situation.
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Tamil Americans protest in front of US Capitol

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 01 August 2006, 09:37 GMT]
More than two hundred American Tamils from Tamil Nadu and Sri Lanka held a protest in the West Front park of US Capitol building Monday between 12:00 noon and 4:00 p.m. urging the US Government to take action against Colombo for its war crimes against the Northeast Tamils. The rally also remembered the civilians killed in the Black July 1983 pogrom against Eelam Tamils.
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Canberra Tamils hold remembrance event for Black July 1983 victims

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 01 August 2006, 00:10 GMT]
Canberra Tamil diaspora, Saturday commemorated the thousands of Tamils who lost their lives and property in the Sri Lankan state sponsored July 1983 anti-Tamil pogrom, by holding a vigil at the Uniting Church auditorium in Canberra, the Australian capital city. The vigil began with the Australian National anthem followed by a one minute silence as a mark of respect for the victims of the massacre and the thousands of Tamil men, women, and children who lost their lives in the Sri Lankan war on the traditional Tamil homelands in the north and east.
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Tamil exclusion from ADB project triggered dispute - LTTE

[TamilNet, Monday, 31 July 2006, 12:56 GMT]
The ‘water’ dispute cited by the government of Sri Lanka as justification for its military offensive this week began two weeks ago due to a refusal by Colombo to implement that part of an ADB-funded project which would supply drinking water to Tamils in LTTE-controlled areas and to go ahead with supply to Sinhala colonies in government-controlled areas, the LTTE said in a statement. The intention of the Sri Lankan airstrikes last week was to prevent international ceasefire monitors from meeting local Tamils protesting their exclusion from the ADB project, the LTTE Peace Secretariat said.
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New York Tamils hold sports festival for children

[TamilNet, Monday, 31 July 2006, 00:50 GMT]
The Arts and Cultural branch of the World Tamil Organization in New York held its Ninth annual children's sports festival at the Jamaica High School sports facilities in Jamaica New York Saturday starting from 10:00 a.m. More than 200 children from Staten Island, Queens, Brooklyn, Bronx and New Jersey areas took part in the festival, organizers said.
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Recognize Tamil rights, or risk CFA collapse- NZ MP

[TamilNet, Sunday, 30 July 2006, 20:21 GMT]
Tamil NewZealanders marked the Remembrance of Black July with a series of events including blood donation drives, prayer offerings, and a Peace March that culminated in an event at the Auckland Normal Intermediate School, July 29, 2006, Kiwi sources said. Member of Parliament, Keith Locke, Secretary of the Refugee Council of New Zealand (RCNZ) Heval Hylan, Human Rights Activist from Global Peace and Justice, Mike Treen, and about 200 Tamils participated in the event which also featured a cultural show.
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