Tamil policeman, trader arrested in Ampaa’rai

[TamilNet, Monday, 20 April 2009, 14:04 GMT]
Thirukkoayil police arrested Sunday a Tamil policeman attached to Thirukkoayil police and a Tamil trader in Thurukkoayil, in Ampaa’rai district, on suspicion of helping Liberation Tigers, the police said. The arrested policeman had earlier taken into custody some paramilitary men who had tried to extort money form the arrested Tamil trader along with Sri Lanka Army (SLA) soldiers, residents of Thirukkoayil said.
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Casualties cross 1000 in SLA's attempt to capture civilians

[TamilNet, Monday, 20 April 2009, 13:18 GMT]
Hundreds of dead bodies and wounded civilians were still lying in Maaththa'lan and Pokka'nai, and more than 600 seriously wounded have been brought to a makeshift hospital functioning at a school in Mu'l'li-vaaykkaal in LTTE held area throughout Monday, TamilNet correspondent reports from Vanni. The correspondent personally witnessed nearly 300 dead bodies while fleeing from the area. Cluster shells and smoke or white-dust-emitting shells that made people to faint were widely deployed on civilians by the Sri Lanka Army in its effort to capture them. However, a large majority of the civilians fled towards LTTE held areas while around 8,000 were trapped and captured by the SLA.
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Expel Norwegian Ambassador from Colombo – Wimal Weerawansa

[TamilNet, Monday, 20 April 2009, 11:31 GMT]
National Freedom Front (NFF) supporters led by its leader Wimal Weerawansa and Jathika Hela Urumaya (JHU) Buddhist Monks political party parliamentarians staged a protest demonstration Monday from 10:00 a.m till 11:30 a.m in front of the Norwegian Embassy in Ward Place in Colombo demanding the removal of the Norwegian Embassy from Sri Lanka and to expel its Ambassador, sources in Colombo said. The demonstrators shouted slogans accusing Norway being partial to Liberation Tigers and that it is trying to save the leaders of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) which is on the verge of being defeated, the sources added.
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LTTE welcomes US initiative, asks Sri Lanka to listen to IC

[TamilNet, Monday, 20 April 2009, 07:35 GMT]
The LTTE on Monday, in a significant statement, recognized and welcomed a refreshing attitude in US, different from the other countries. It pleaded the Sri Lanka government to listen to international opinion, to stop the war and enter into negotiations. But at the same time it warned Colombo of dire consequences if the war is continued. "The LTTE and the fight for our freedom will also continue. The methods may vary but Sri Lanka will never be able to live in peace as it imagines a military victory will bring. However, for the record, the LTTE would like to emphasize again that it is always ready to explore peaceful means to resolve the conflict”, the LTTE statement issued from the political headquarters in Vanni, read.
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Chaos and carnage as SLA enters 'safety zone'

[TamilNet, Monday, 20 April 2009, 06:19 GMT]
Several hundreds of civilians are feared killed and injured and total chaos prevails among civilians as Sri Lanka Army (SLA) advanced into the so-called 'safety zone' in Pokka'nai Monday morning 11:00 a.m., according to latest reports from Vanni. Heavy fighting was reported along the bunds of the lagoon and patients in the Puthumaaththa'lan makeshift hospital were forced to run away as Rocket Propelled Grenades launched by the SLA hit the hospital. A few medical staff remaining in the hospital are hiding in bunkers. People were seen running in panic as dead and injured were seen lying scattered everywhere, eyewitnesses told TamilNet.
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SLA launches ground push targeting 'safety zone'

[TamilNet, Sunday, 19 April 2009, 20:38 GMT]
Sri Lanka Army (SLA) launched a fresh ground offensive in the early hours of Monday around 2:00 a.m. by opening fire along the stretch from Maaththa'lan to Mu'l'li-vaaykkaal, according to TamilNet correspondent in Vanni. Heavy shelling, rocket fire and gunfire was reported in Maaththa'lan, Pokka'nai, Valaignarmadam and Mu'l'li-vaaykkaal as SLA continued to fire from its positions. There are civilian casualties. Details are yet to emerge.
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Diaspora youth hunger strike ignites mass struggle for Eezham

[TamilNet, Sunday, 19 April 2009, 13:05 GMT]
The fast to death protest by Parameswaran Subramaniyan to draw attention of the International Community to the ongoing catastrophe in Sri Lanka, has reached the 13th day on Sunday. Thousands of Tamils of all ages and all walks of life have been pouring into the Parliament Square throughout the campaign, expressing their support to hunger strikers and their demands put forward to the British Government. The hunger strike launched by Parameswaran and Sivatharsan Sivakumaravel has become a key point of confluence drawing not only the first and second generation of Tamils in UK, but also attracting active participation of third generation of Tamils in the Eezham cause.
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White van armed men abduct Tamil woman in Ampaa’rai

[TamilNet, Sunday, 19 April 2009, 09:45 GMT]
An armed gang of men alleged to be paramilitaries operating with Sri Lanka Army (SLA) arriving in a white van Friday around 9:00 p.m broke into the house of a woman at Akkaraipattu and forcibly took her away, according to the complaint lodged with Akkaraipattu police by her children. Her husband had been abducted Monday around 5:00 p.m by armed men in a white van as he was riding home on his motorcycle, sources in Akkaraipattu said.
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French organisations vote, unanimously support Eezham Tamil independence

[TamilNet, Sunday, 19 April 2009, 09:41 GMT]
Exercising their right of free expression, 67 registered social welfare organisations of diaspora Tamils in France, took a pioneering democratic step of secret ballot on Saturday and unanimously declared support to the independence war of Eezham Tamils in the island of Sri Lanka, said Ki Pi Aravinthan in Paris to TamilNet. The Paris declaration read that in supporting the cause of Eezham Tamils, it has infallibly adopted the will and spirit of the Vaddukkoaddai Declaration of 1976 that was overwhelmingly mandated by Tamil voters in 1977, and was in line with the ideology behind the declaration of American independence, the Republic of France in 1789 and the UN human rights declaration of 1948.
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Unprecedented Tamil Protests in Australia

[TamilNet, Sunday, 19 April 2009, 09:26 GMT]
The hunger strike by 6 Tamils in Australia, calling for the immediate halt of atrocities against Tamils in Sri Lanka that began on the 11th of April 2009 at 5:00 p.m. was concluded April 17 with an unprecedented rally in the capital city of Canberra where more than 8500 diaspora Tamils took part. A long time peace activist, Lara Pullin, who came to see the hunger strikers said, “The rallies by the Tamils have gathered the same momentum that I saw during pre East Timor independence time and Anti-apartheid movement; one gets the feeling that Tamils have come to a stage where they are saying ‘Enough is Enough’ ”, sources in Canberra said.
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White van armed men abduct Tamil youth, woman in Batticaloa

[TamilNet, Sunday, 19 April 2009, 04:32 GMT]
Unidentified armed men arriving in a white van abducted Saturday around 3:00 p.m a 52-year-old Tamil woman from her house at Pankudaave’i in Karadiyanaa’ru after assaulting her and on Thursday armed men in police uniform in a white van forcibly took away a Tamil youth from Ka’napathi Nakar in Chengkaladi, in Batticalao, sources in Batticaloa said.
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Youth abducted in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Sunday, 19 April 2009, 03:06 GMT]
Unidentified armed men on motor cycles forcibly took away a youth riding on his motor cycle near Kalladdi Pi’laiyaar Koayil in Jaffna Wednesday, according to the complaint registered with Jaffna Human Rights Commission office by his wife S. Sasibarathi.
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British Foreign Secretary listens

[TamilNet, Sunday, 19 April 2009, 00:06 GMT]
“We have heard their [Tamil] voice and will keep listening”, said British Foreign Secretary, David Miliband, in a statement on Saturday. Saying that the British government is for ‘immediate ceasefire’ and for civilians to be ‘allowed to leave’, and the UN is progressing in making GoSL agreeing to send ‘support to civilians’ and LTTE agreeing to ‘allow civilians to leave’, the Foreign Secretary didn’t fail to mention that this is a stance in unison of Britain, France, US and many other governments. Commenting on his statement, British diaspora circles told TamilNet that the statement didn’t touch the crucial issue of ‘civilians going where’.
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'Starvation poised for worse killings than shelling'

[TamilNet, Saturday, 18 April 2009, 17:42 GMT]
While around 60 civilians killed Friday and Saturday by Sri Lanka Army (SLA) shelling, civilians have already started dying and many more thousands are at the verge of death due to starvation that is silently taking its toll within the so-called safety zone, TamilNet correspondent reported Saturday. The imminent victims are elderly, children and women. "Gruel has become the staple food to keep soul and body together for a vast majority of the civilians for weeks now. If there is no instant action, more starvation casualties can be expected in the next few days than the hitherto known total of casualties caused by shelling," warns TamilNet correspondent citing health and administrative officials staying inside the so-called safety zone.
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'Regular rapes, killings, degrading interrogations in internment camps'

[TamilNet, Saturday, 18 April 2009, 13:25 GMT]
Tamil IDPs inside the barbed-wire internment camps in Sri Lanka Army (SLA) controlled Vavuniyaa are not only medically underserved, but are subjected to degrading interrogations and there are reports of regular rapes and killings, reveals a well known German writer and Human Rights activist, Thomas Seibert, who recently returned from Sri Lanka after a humanitarian trip, conducting personal interviews that described the plight of civilians kept as near-prisoners under the SLA occupation.
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Largest UN, New York rally fills Times Square

[TamilNet, Saturday, 18 April 2009, 11:04 GMT]
In one of the largest rallies held by the American Tamils in New York, more than 5000 protesters from different parts of the United States and Canada converged in New York in the park on 47th Street between 1st and 2nd Avenues near the UN, and a smaller group in the permitted area 43rd Street park directly across from the Secretariat Building between 10:00 a.m. and 2:00 p.m. Friday, and urged the UN to take urgent steps to stop the carnage unfolding in the coastal villages of Mullaiththeevu where the Government of Sri Lanka is slaughtering hundreds of Tamil civilians daily under the pretext of cornering the LTTE leadership. The protesters then marched westward to the Times Square, one mile from the UN, and continued the protest until 5:00 p.m., according to the organizers.
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Colombo shouldn’t block UN visiting safety zone: Nadesan

[TamilNet, Saturday, 18 April 2009, 09:28 GMT]
The Government of Sri Lanka should not block UN Chief of Staff Vijay Nambiar visiting the safety zone and acquainting himself of the conditions of the civilians, said LTTE political head, B. Nadesan when contacted by TamilNet on Saturday after reports of Sri Lanka rejecting UN appeal for ceasefire. "The GoSL is not making arrangements for his visit, to prevent him from knowing the nature and magnitude of its offensive and to prevent first hand verifications of the truth reaching the UN," he said.
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Police arrest 17 civilians in Kandy

[TamilNet, Saturday, 18 April 2009, 04:14 GMT]
Galagadera police arrested seventeen civilians, most of them Tamils, in cordon and search operations conducted in Kandy district Thursday. The arrested civilians are being detained by the police as they failed to prove their identity and justify their presence in the location, Galagedera police said.
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Sri Lanka deports British journalist

[TamilNet, Friday, 17 April 2009, 19:59 GMT]
Jeremy Page, reporter for the British paper, The Times, was escorted to the detention room on arrival at the Katunayake International Airport last week, locked up for the night, and deported to the UK the next day, says Page in an article in Timesonline. He was denied a journalist's visa for Sri Lanka since August despite multiple applications, and he was identified and deported when he tried to enter Sri Lanka on a tourist visa. "I know why I'm blacklisted: the Government [of Sri Lanka] thinks, or pretends to think, that I support the Tigers. That is nonsense. I have no personal connection to either side of this 26-year civil war," writes Page.
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2 Tamil youths arrested in Tangalle

[TamilNet, Friday, 17 April 2009, 18:04 GMT]
Tangalle police rushed Tuesday early morning to Polomaaruwa, a suburb of Tangalle town, on a tip off that some strangers were seen moving in the jungle area in the night and took two Tamil youths into custody in a search operation, sources in Tangalle said. The police declined to reveal whether the arrested youths were from North, East or Upcountry.
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