UN agencies call for immediate release of kidnapped TRO staff

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 01 February 2006, 12:48 GMT]
UN Humanitarian Co-ordinator’s Office in Sri Lanka, on Wednesday, has called for the immediate release of the abducted humanitarian aid workers employed by the Tamils Rehabilitation Organisation (TRO). Deploring the reported abuduction, the UN office in Colombo said that the humanitarian aid workers who devote their professional lives to serving those in need, have the right to respect and protection from harm.
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Paramilitaries release two TRO workers

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 01 February 2006, 11:54 GMT]
Two of the five pre-school teachers who were abducted by paramilitaries working with the assistance of Sri Lanka Army (SLA) on Sunday 8.00 p.m. were released unharmed and returned to their families in Batticaloa on Wednesday, TRO representatives in Batticaloa said. The fate of the remaining 8 persons abducted by the paramilitaries is not yet known.
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NGO Consortium urges immediate action to release kidnapped TRO staff

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 01 February 2006, 08:08 GMT]
The Consortium of Non Governmental Organisation in Vavuniya, representing 43 NGOs in Vavuniya District, on Tuesday, appealed to the Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapakse, the representative of the International Committee for Red Cross in Colombo (ICRC), the Head of Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission (SLMM) and the chairperson of the Consortium of Humanitarian Agencies in Colombo, to take immediate action to safeguard the lives and to ensure the safe return of NGO workers who have been kidnapped.
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Another five TRO staff reported missing

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 31 January 2006, 17:17 GMT]
Five persons, four Tamils Rehabilitation Organization (TRO) Pre School Education Development Center (PSEDC) personnel, and their driver, have been reported missing in the East, the TRO said in a press release issued Tuesday evening. The team, which was expected to have returned to the Kilinochchi FORUT office Tuesday, had left Valaichchenai, Batticaloa District, Sunday around 7:00 p.m. The PSEDC personnel had gone to Batticaloa to carry out the final assessment of the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) funded Temporary Pre School Construction Project for Tsunami Welfare Centers and to evaluate the progress of the construction of Permanent Pre Schools funded by Save the Children in Sri Lanka.
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Paramilitaries abduct 5 TRO staff in Welikande

[TamilNet, Monday, 30 January 2006, 19:54 GMT]
"Five (5) staff members [of Tamils Rehabilitation Organization (TRO)] travelling from the Batticaloa office to Vanvuniya for training have been stopped by unidentified paramilitary personnel immediately after the Welikanda, (Polunnaruwa District) Sri Lankan Army Checkpoint at approximately 2:00 pm 30 January, 2006," TRO said in a press release issued Monday.
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CWC, UPF to jointly contest local elections

[TamilNet, Monday, 30 January 2006, 17:03 GMT]
The Ceylon Workers Congress (CWC) and Upcountry Peoples Front (UPF) Monday decided to field candidates in the forthcoming local elections jointly as one group with a common symbol. The second round of talks between CWC delegation led by its President Mr.Armugan Thondaman and UPF delegation led by its President Mr.P.Chandrasekaran was held Monday in Nuwara Eliya. The first round of talks was held on January 26 in Colombo, sources said.
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Sewing training to tsunami-affected Kaddaikadu women

[TamilNet, Saturday, 28 January 2006, 13:23 GMT]
Sewing training course conducted by the Rural Rehabilitation and Development Organization (RRDH) under an income generation project for about fifty women affected by tsunami at Kaddaikadu village in Vadamarachchi East division in Jaffna district concluded Friday, sources said.


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Intelligence Chief Zacky in Jaffna to step up campaign

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 24 January 2006, 12:40 GMT]
Director of Military Intelligence (DMI) Brigadier Rizvy Zacky, a hardliner, has been recently posted as Brigadier General Staff Officer (GSO, Intelligence) at the Sri Lanka Army Head Quarters (SF HQ) Jaffna in a major reshuffle of the SLA and Intelligence apparatus. Execution-style killings of five students in Trincomalee and three women members of a family in Jaffna mark a stark change of pattern in the escalation of intensified serial killings of non-combatant civilians in Sri Lanka Army (SLA) controlled areas in the NorthEast. The pattern of violence also marks the return of hardliners who seems to prefer terror to subdue a population.
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LTTE, GoSL dialogue imperative for peace, says Burns

[TamilNet, Monday, 23 January 2006, 16:17 GMT]
"We hope that the LTTE will understand that it will have no relationship with my government and, indeed, no effective relationship with any country in this world as long as it seeks to redress its own grievances through the barrel of a gun. Now, we understand the Tamil community here has legitimate grievances, and legitimate issues that ought to be addressed by the government. And there out to be a dialogue, a better dialogue, between the government and the Tamil community," said US Undersecretary of Political Affairs, Nicholas Burns, in a press briefing in Colombo Monday.
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US Tamils question timing of Ambassador Lunstead's speech

[TamilNet, Monday, 23 January 2006, 00:41 GMT]
Questioning Ambassador Lunstead's "reckless exercise at a time of great risk to the peace process, and just a few days before Mr. Erik Solheim’s visit, which everyone was looking to as the only way of defusing an extremely dangerous situation," US Tamils, in a memorandum to Secretary of State, Dr Condoleezza Rice and to Mr Nicholas Burns, the U.S. under secretary of state for political affairs, said they hoped that Mr. Burns, who will be in Sri Lanka during Mr. Solheim’s visit, "will clarify to everyone what US policy is at this critical time, and help revive the peace track."
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"Back to war"

[TamilNet, Sunday, 22 January 2006, 21:06 GMT]
"Unlike Indonesia Sri Lanka has failed to usher in peace. Every opportunity for rapprochement has been squandered after the Tsunami...The Sri Lankan government and the LTTE are steeped in mutual suspicion and contempt and will not arrive at any resolution on their own. A new heavy weight mediator must join Norway's Herculean but waning peacemaking efforts, one whom both parties can respect as an honest broker," said an independent analysis that appeared in the Sunday online edition of "The News" of Jang Group.
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More than 200 families flee Jaffna Sunday

[TamilNet, Sunday, 22 January 2006, 19:06 GMT]
Forthcoming talks between Norwegian facilitators and top leadership of Liberation Tigers early next week notwithstanding, Tamil families continued to flee Jaffna district to safety within LTTE controlled areas of Vanni, civil society groups in Jaffna said. More than 200 families crossed Muhamalai checkpoint into Vanni between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m. Sunday, according to reports.
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Muttur Tamils flee to LTTE areas seeking safety

[TamilNet, Sunday, 22 January 2006, 00:29 GMT]
Families from Tamil villages in the divisions of Muttur and Seruvila in the government controlled areas in the Trincomalee district continued to flee to LTTE controlled areas seeking safety and to escape harassment from Sri Lanka Government troops, civil society sources said. About one thousand three hundred familes have relocated in the last two weeks, NGO sources said.


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Speech damages credibility of US role in SL peace, say Tamil Americans

[TamilNet, Saturday, 21 January 2006, 15:34 GMT]
Tamil Americans in a letter to United States Ambassador in Sri Lanka, Jeffrey Lunstead, commenting on the Ambassador's speech on 9 January, and his subsequent clarification of 17 January, expressed concern that "his partisan message has done immense damage to the peace process and to the credibility of US role in it."
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Sri Lanka continues to violate state obligations towards Tamils, say Tamil parties

[TamilNet, Saturday, 21 January 2006, 00:20 GMT]
The Government of Sri Lanka not only failed to carry out proper investigations into the assasinations of reputed Tamil leaders, parliamentarians, journalists and activists, but it has also failed to take appropriate actions to prevent the recurrence of such crimes against the ordinary Tamil civilians, all four Tamil parties in the Lankan parliament charged in a joint memorandum sent to SL President Mahinda Rajapakse Friday. The joint statement was issued by the Tamil National Alliance (TNA), Ceylon Workers Congress (CWC), Upcountry Peoples' Front (UPF) and Western Province Peoples' Front (WPPF) that jointly staged a protest campaign within the chambers of the Sri Lankan Parliament.
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"The Tamils are getting a lesson in realpolitik"

[TamilNet, Friday, 20 January 2006, 11:35 GMT]
The United States’ singling out of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) for the spiral of violence in Sri Lanka has undermined the neutrality of the Co-Chairs of the peace process and will fuel the military repression from which thousands of Tamils are fleeing, the Tamil Guardian newspaper said this week. In an editorial titled ‘Interests, not values’ the expatriate newspaper also criticised the US for not supporting efforts to get investment and reconstruction assistance to the war-devastated northeast, whilst blaming the LTTE for the continuing dearth of funding for the region.


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Canadian Conservative Party calls for increased participation in peace process

[TamilNet, Friday, 20 January 2006, 08:12 GMT]
The Conservative Party of Canada (CPC) Thursday announced that it has prioritized Canada's role in the Sri Lankan Peace process. The CPC leaderhsip said the party also wanted to increase assistance spending to further build the conditions for a negotiated peace in Sri Lanka.
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10 civilians, 3 SLA soldiers, policeman wounded in Trincomalee

[TamilNet, Thursday, 19 January 2006, 15:23 GMT]
Ten civilians were wounded in a bomb attack on a Sri Lanka Navy Jeep and the retaliatory fire and assault on civilians by the troopers Thursday evening in Trincomalee district between Gandhinagar and Anuradhapura junction along the Trincomalee - Kandy Highway, 3 km southwest of east port town. SLA soldiers opened fire wounding civilians following the explosion. The bomb exploded Thursday around 4 p.m., according to the Police. Tension prevailed in the area.
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Canadian parties commit to active role in Sri Lankan peace process - CTC

[TamilNet, Thursday, 19 January 2006, 01:17 GMT]
The four national parties contesting in the upcoming federal election in Canada, have vowed to play an active role in the Sri Lankan peace process in a public debate organized by the Canadian Tamil Congress (CTC) at the Delta Toronto East Hotel in Toronto on Tuesday. Referring to a media report Wednesday in the National Post that cited Peter MacKay, a leading member of the Conservative Party, as supporting a ban on the LTTE, the spokesman of the national body of the Canadian Tamils, Ashwin Balamohan, said that the issue has been raised with the Conservative Party and said all the four parties have reiterated their commitment to an "unbiased policy" on the Sri Lankan issue.
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Tamil MPs protest, SL parliament suspended second day

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 18 January 2006, 06:43 GMT]
Parliamentarians of Tamil National Alliance (TNA), Ceylon Workers Congress (CWC), Upcountry People's Front (UPF) and Western Province People's Front (WPPF) Wednesday resumed their sit-in protest in the well of the House for the for the second consequtive when the parliament resumed its sitting, Wednesday morning. Speaker M.J.M.Lokkubandara suspended the sitting for the day because of noisy protest by the Tamil MPs demanding the Sri Lanka Government to stop the killings, arrests and harassment of Tamil speaking people by the State armed forces, using Emergency Regulations, parliamentary sources said.
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