SLA continues to inflict carnage

[TamilNet, Monday, 11 May 2009, 01:30 GMT]
Sri Lanka Army (SLA) has stepped up relentless barrage of shelling using all sorts of heavy weapons on the so-called safety-zone (no-fire zone) in Mu'l'li-vaaykkaal and Vadduvaakal areas where more than 130,000 civilians have sought refuge without adequate bunkers and shelters. Civilian casualties are mounting amidst lack of medicine and food due to limited or denied supplies into the area of 7 square kilometres. Lawrence Christy, the head of Tamils Rehabilitation Organisation (TRO) Field Office on Monday put the death toll of civilians on Monday at more than 3,200 killed since Sunday evening up to Monday morning. He has called on the IC to immediately invoke the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) to the stop the genocide.
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Sonia says war is over while 1200 civilian bodies are counted in Vanni

[TamilNet, Sunday, 10 May 2009, 23:56 GMT]
Congress president Ms Sonia Gandhi, sharing a platform with the Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi on Sunday said: "Our government had done everything possible to bring an end to the hostilities and it was due to our resolute efforts that Sri Lanka announced conclusion of combat operations and people moved to safer places," PTI quoted Ms. Gandhi saying. Meanwhile, the same day has seen a massive massacre of civilians in the no-fire zone by the Sri Lanka Army using all kinds of heavy weapons and aerial bombing. Around 1200 bodies were counted so far and 1125 injured managed to reach the makeshift hospital.
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Tamil survivors bear phosphorous burns - report

[TamilNet, Sunday, 10 May 2009, 23:24 GMT]
Tamil civilians who escaped the Sri Lankan military bombardment, treated by French doctors, included those with injuries from phosphorous bombs, AFP reported. Doctors at the French field hospital Cheddikulam, Vavuniya said that among those who were treated were those with white hands, possibly caused by burns from phosphorus- an incendiary weapon which is banned from use in civilian areas under an international convention. According to Peter Herby, head of the ICRC's (International Committee of the Red Cross) Arms Unit, there are specific rules on the use of white phosphorous that go beyond the general rules of war.
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Aid workers tell donors not to fund Sri Lanka, reports Channel-4's Walsh

[TamilNet, Sunday, 10 May 2009, 21:14 GMT]
"This is a man-made humanitarian disaster, the aid worker explained. "I am in the strange position of just keep telling all our donors when they come here to NOT to give money,"" writes Channel-4's Nick Paton Walsh, quoting an aid worker inside an internment camp in Vavuniyaa. The Channel-4 crew was deported on the directions of Sri Lanka's Defense Secretary Gotabaya Rajapakse for reporting allegations of abuse, rape, and ill-treatment of Tamils held in internment camps.
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Ilanthirayan seriously wounded in SLA barrage

[TamilNet, Sunday, 10 May 2009, 15:38 GMT]
Liberation Tigers of Tamileelam (LTTE) Military Spokesman Irasiah Punitharooban alias Ilanthirayan (Marshall) sustained heavy injuries in the latest artillery barrage by the Sri Lanka Army (SLA) in the early hours of Sunday, sources close to LTTE in Vanni told TamilNet.
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India should sue Sri Lanka in ICJ for massacre of 2000 Tamils - Prof. Boyle

[TamilNet, Sunday, 10 May 2009, 14:00 GMT]
"In light of the latest atrocity by the Government of Sri Lanka that overnight exterminated 2000 Tamils, at a minimum the Government of India must sue Sri Lanka for violating the 1948 Genocide Convention before the International Court of Justice in The Hague, request an Emergency Hearing by the World Court, and win an Order of Provisional Measures of Protection --the international equivalent of a temporary restraining order-- against the GOSL to cease and desist from committing all acts of genocide against the Tamils," said Professor Boyle, professor of International Law at the University of Illinois College of Law, in a note sent to TamilNet Sunday. "I stand ready to file this World Court Lawsuit immediately upon receipt of the appropriate authorization from the Government of India," Boyle further said.
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Tamil civilian arrested in Puththa’lam

[TamilNet, Sunday, 10 May 2009, 09:05 GMT]
Sri Lanka Army (SLA) and police conducted several cordon and search operations since Thursday in Va’n’naaththivi’l’lu and Paalaavi in Puththa’lam district in which a Tamil civilian was taken into custody and hundreds of Tamil, Muslim and Sinhalese civilians were interrogated, sources in Puththa’lam said. Residents of the above places have been asked by the police to register themselves in their respective police stations immediately as these villages are located on the borders of Wilpattu sanctuary. Police sources said the measure has been taken to ensure that no strangers infiltrate these villages.
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Norway Tamils ballot-test political course

[TamilNet, Sunday, 10 May 2009, 08:50 GMT]
"After deliberately abetting the process of ethnic polarisation to its height reaching genocide, and after creating a situation that warrants secession more than ever, the international community and India, vested with their own interests, have started talking about a federal solution. It is time that the Tamils have to democratically test the validity of the political course democratically set for them in 1976 by the Vaddukkoaddai Resolution and democratically tell the world what they want now," commented a self-exiled Tamil politician of the pre-1977 times responding to a ballot on Vaddukkoaddai resolution taking place among Eezham Tamils in Norway on Sunday.
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LTTE urges IC to act in the international way

[TamilNet, Sunday, 10 May 2009, 07:55 GMT]
"More than 2,000 innocent civilians have been killed in the last 24 hours. The wholesale bombardment by Sri Lankan planes and shelling on a densely populated, non combatant civilian safe zone is state terrorism and a war crime," said S. Pathmanathan, the LTTE head of international relations on Sunday. "The Tamil people are dismayed that the United Nations and the International Community have failed in their obligations to protect the endangered civilians. [...] We only ask for an impartial relief effort similar to those extended to other international conflict zones by the UN and the international community in the recent past," he further said.
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Malnutrition in mothers triggers Jaundice, Hepatitis in newborns

[TamilNet, Saturday, 09 May 2009, 18:09 GMT]
Lack of basic nutrients in food available to lactating mothers is causing severe cases of jaundice and hepatitis-A in the new borns and months old babies inside the safe-zone where an estimated 120,000-165,000 Tamil civilians are struggling to stay alive, medical sources within the safe zone said Saturday. Mothers have flocked to the temporary hospital relocated to junior school, crying and pleading with the doctors for milk-powder, but hospital stocks are completely depleted, according to Vanni medical sources.
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Sri Lanka arrests Channel-4 journalists

[TamilNet, Saturday, 09 May 2009, 17:27 GMT]
Three British TV Channel-4 journalists, Nick Paton-Walsh, the channel's Asian correspondent, producer Bessie Du and cameraman Matt Jasper, who were covering the Sri Lanka conflict in Trincomalee have been arrested and are being taken to Colombo, AP reported. Channel-4's first independently filmed recent exposure coverage of the conditions of the Tamil refugees who fled the war and being in the internment camps had irked Colombo. The blatant rights violations of the Sri Lanka state had disturbed the world at large for the cavaliar fashion the state was behaving towards the civilians.
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Vanni civilians in SLA detention centres to be settled in Thenmaraadchi

[TamilNet, Saturday, 09 May 2009, 15:54 GMT]
Sri Lanka Army (SLA) authorities in Jaffna have decided to permanently settle the civilians from Vanni, now held in the SLA detention centres in Jaffna district, in three large detention centres to be located in Allaarai area in Kodikaamam and Kaithadi, in Thenmaraadchi, sources in Jaffna said. The SLA detention centres in Mirusuvil Roman Catholic Church premises and Kodikaamam Government Tamil Mixed School (GTMS) will continue to be maintained, the sources added.
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Tamil families to be evicted to settle injured Sinhala soldiers

[TamilNet, Saturday, 09 May 2009, 14:42 GMT]
Mano Ganeshan, leader of the Democratic Peoples Front and Colombo district parliamentarian in an urgent letter faxed to Sri Lanka's President Mahinda Rajapakse, urged him to stop moves to oust sixty two Tamil families residing in Vavelkanthura GS division in Ratnapura district and to settle injured soldiers of the Sri Lanka Army (SLA), sources in Colombo said. The said Tamil families have owned and been living in their homes for the past seven decades, according to local sources.
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Sinhala gangs threaten Tamil traders in Kandy

[TamilNet, Saturday, 09 May 2009, 14:24 GMT]
Sinhala gangs in Kandy are continuing to threaten Tamil traders and extorting money from them, according to Mr.S.Rajaratnam, Member of the Central Provincial Council. Police were provided with telephone numbers and bank details of the heads of the gangs, but the law-enforcement has not taken any action on the criminals.
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Colombo committing war crimes attacking hospitals – HRW

[TamilNet, Saturday, 09 May 2009, 13:35 GMT]
Sri Lankan armed forces “have repeatedly struck hospitals in the northern Vanni region in indiscriminate artillery and aerial attacks”, Human Rights Watch said Saturday, warning that commanders responsible for such attacks may be prosecuted for war crimes. "While doctors and nurses struggle to save lives in overcrowded and underequipped facilities, Sri Lankan army attacks have hit one hospital after another," said Brad Adams, Asia director at HRW. HRW again called for the situation in Sri Lanka to be urgently taken up by a formal meeting of the UN Security Council and by a special session of the UN Human Rights Council.
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4 Tamil youths missing, 1 abducted in Batticaloa in a day

[TamilNet, Saturday, 09 May 2009, 07:03 GMT]
Four Tamil youths from Batticaloa district had gone missing Sunday 3 May in places around Batticaloa town while armed men in a white van abducted a young farmer on the same day in Vavu’natheevu, in Batticlaoa district, according to complaints registered with Sri Lanka Human Rights Commission (SLHRC) in Batticaloa, by their relatives. Four of the youths who are friends had gone missing after leaving homes while unidentified armed men arriving in a white van had forcibly taken away the fifth youth from his home in Vavu’natheevu, sources in Batticaloa said.
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Tamil Human Rights officer abducted in Colombo

[TamilNet, Saturday, 09 May 2009, 04:51 GMT]
Unidentified armed men in a white van, alleged to be Military Intelligence officers, Thursday night forcibly took away Stephen Sunthararaj, 39, the Project Manager of Centre for Human Rights and Development (CHRD) in Colpetty in Colombo, near Colombo Town Hall, sources in Colombo said. Sunthararaj, who had been arrested by Colpetty police 12 February, was released Thursday morning by Colombo Magistrate Court found not guilty of any offence, the sources added.
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SLA, Police arrest 75 Tamil civilians in Colombo

[TamilNet, Friday, 08 May 2009, 15:51 GMT]
Sri Lanka Army (SLA) soldiers and Sri Lanka Police arrested seventy five Tamil youths who are residents of Jaffna, Batticaloa, Trincomalee and upcountry areas in cordon and search operations conducted during the last three days from dusk to dawn in Kotahena, Grandpass, Muhathuwaaram, Wellawatte, Bambalapitya and Kollupitty. Similar operation was also conducted in Negombo, Gampaha and Kalutara, media sources in Colombo said.
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'Post-conflict is post-Sri Lankan'

[TamilNet, Friday, 08 May 2009, 13:31 GMT]
The Norwegian peace facilitator Erik Solheim is half a century late in calling for a federal solution to the Tamil national question in the island of Sri Lanka, said TamilNet’s political commentator in Colombo. “By naming the solution in his mind, whether Erik Solhiem is resigning from his role of peace facilitation and assumes another profile”, asked the commentator. “A federal agenda upheld at this juncture is a mockery of the spirit of federalism. A successful federal set-up comes only from spontaneous and mutual consent of peoples. Warring parties of a long legacy may make federal more miserable. The bitter war unchecked but abetted by the international community in the island leads to nothing but secession”, the commentator further said.
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MIA draws Oprah's attention to Sri Lanka bombing of safe zone

[TamilNet, Friday, 08 May 2009, 10:42 GMT]
Oscar and Grammy award nominee, Eezham born music phenom, Maya Arulpragasam (MIA), after meeting the popular talk-show host Oprah Winfrey at a gala at Lincoln Center in celebration of the most influential people list the Time magazine produced, drew Oprah's attention to Sri Lanka Government's bombing of civilian camps inside the safe zone in MIA's face book.
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