Carnage continues in Vanni

[TamilNet, Thursday, 09 April 2009, 19:26 GMT]
Indiscriminate shelling and gun fire by the Sri Lanka Army (SLA) continued on safe zone Pokka'nai and Valaignarmadam throughout the day on Thursday. Medical officials at Puthumaaththa'lan hospital told media that more than 300 wounded civilians were admitted and 47 of the victims died after admission at the hospital. Many civilians killed in the shelling and gunfire by the Sri Lanka Army (SLA) were not brought to the hospital. Total figure of the casualties were not available.
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Nadesan denies LTTE 'threat' to Sonia and her children

[TamilNet, Thursday, 09 April 2009, 12:39 GMT]
Political Head of the LTTE, B. Nadesan rubbished reports in a section of the English media in India that there was a Tamil Tiger threat to top politicians including Congress chief Sonia Gandhi. According to reliable media sources in India, B Nadesan had categorically denied Thursday that there was an LTTE threat to Indian leaders.
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14 Tamil youths arrested in Colombo

[TamilNet, Thursday, 09 April 2009, 10:37 GMT]
Sri Lanka police took into custody 14 Tamil youths in a search operation conducted in Wellawathe, a suburb of Colombo city, according to complaints made to Deputy Minister P. Rathakrishnan by the youths’ relatives. The arrested youths are from Jaffna, the police said.
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Ramsey Clark to address New York protest

[TamilNet, Thursday, 09 April 2009, 04:52 GMT]
Ramsey Clark, former US Attorney General in President Lyndon B Johnson administration, is to attend a protest fast by five American Tamils in front of the U.S. Mission to the United Nations in New York Thursday to conclude the protest campaign. The protest is organized as part of a world-wide diaspora campaign to highlight the horrific killings of Tamil civilians by the Sri Lanka military in a near genocidal campaign in Mullaiththeevu district, organizers of the protest said.
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26 Tamils arrested in Ampaa’rai

[TamilNet, Thursday, 09 April 2009, 04:37 GMT]
Special Task Force (STF) commandos and police arrested 26 Tamils Tuesday in a joint cordon and search conducted in Kalmunai and Chammaanththu’rai police divisions in Ampaa’rai district. More than a hundred persons were taken into custody and released after interrogation. 25 of them in Kalmunai police station and 5 in Chammaanththu’rai police station have been detained for further investigation, sources in Ampaa’rai said.
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Tamil protesters bring traffic to a halt in Australia

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 08 April 2009, 20:00 GMT]
More than 4,000 Australian Tamils converged in the cities of Melbourne and Sydney Wednesday, causing police to block Elizabeth Street and bringing evening peak hour traffic to a standstill. The rally which was organised overnight, called on the Australian government to use their diplomatic powers to pressure Sri Lanka into entering a ceasefire.
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TNA Ex-MP to begin hunger strike in South Africa

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 08 April 2009, 18:12 GMT]
M.K.Eelaventhan, a former Tamil National Alliance (TNA) Member of Parliament in Sri Lanka, in a press statement issued Wednesday, announced he will begin hunger strike on Thursday, 9 April 2009 at 8:30 am at the Mariamman Temple, Mt. Edgecombe, South Africa. He said by starting his protest on "the soil from which freedom struggle of South African people was won," he hopes to draw the attention of freedom fighters nobel laureates like Nelson Mandela and Archbishop Tutu to recognize the plight of the Tamils in Sri Lanka.
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'Immediate ceasefire is the only way' - Jayalalithaa

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 08 April 2009, 12:35 GMT]
"I strongly insist that an immediate ceasefire is the only way to save the Tamil civilians in the safety zone," said AIDMK General Secretary and former Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu Ms. J. Jayalalithaa in a signed statement in Tamil, issued on Wednesday. Ms. Jayalalithaa in the strongly worded statement blamed Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi and the Central Government of India for the current plight of Tamil civilians. "People of Tamil Nadu will wash their hands off of such elements whose hands are jointly at work causing misery to the Tamils in the island of Sri Lanka," she said.
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I can't cause miracles: Erik Solheim

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 07 April 2009, 21:16 GMT]
"I can understand the level of desperation among the Tamils in Norway. But, I can't cause miracles," said Erik Solheim, the Norwegian international development minister and the topmost representative of the Norwegian facilitation to the peace process in the island of Sri Lanka, on Tuesday. Responding to Mr. Erik Solheim, Mr. Ki Pi Aravinthan, a veteran former Tamil militant of the 1970's and a well-known Tamil writer in France said that Solheim may not be able to perform miracles, but at least he should have refrained himself from committing knowing blunders. "Diplomacy may be the art of the possible, but a liberation struggle is to make impossible, possible. Norway failed in grasping the point," he said.
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Colombo uses chemical weapons: LTTE

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 07 April 2009, 20:08 GMT]
Sri Lanka Army extensively used chemical weapons on LTTE combatants at Puthukkudiyiruppu (PTK) during the weekend, according to Lawrence, a senior commander of the LTTE, who personally encountered the attack and escaped, LTTE sources told TamilNet Tuesday. Meanwhile, Sri Lankan Defence Ministry has claimed that it has killed hundreds of Tiger combatants including senior commanders in PTK last weekend. The use of chemical weapons were the suspicion of many who have seen the photographs released by the SL Defence Ministry, but now the accusation comes from the LTTE. The Tiger sources neither confirmed the type of the chemical weapon nor said anything on the casualties claimed by Colombo.
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Emergency extended in Sri Lanka for another month

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 07 April 2009, 19:58 GMT]
Sri Lanka Parliament Tuesday adopted a motion to extend the state of emergency for another month by a majority of 81 votes when the House of Representatives met Tuesday around 9:30 a.m. presided by the Speaker of the House, V. J. M. Lokku Bandara. The motion submitted by the Prime Minister Ratnasiri Wickremanayake was passed with 92 MPs voting for, and 11 MPs voting against, parliamentary sources said.
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Police recover body of Kauna group person in Vaazhaichcheanai

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 07 April 2009, 17:31 GMT]
Vaazhaichcheanai police recovered the body of the Karuna group person shot and killed Friday night by unidentified armed men at the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) office of Vinayagamoorthy Muraleetharan alias Karuna in Vadamunai Ooththuchcheanai on the border of Batticaloa district, sources in Batticaloa said. The body was recovered near Vadamumani tank with gunshot injuries, the police said.
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SLA takes away 65 detainees including students to Thellippa’lai Camp

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 07 April 2009, 17:01 GMT]
Sri Lanka Army (SLA) soldiers forcibly took away Saturday and Sunday 65 detainees including students from three SLA detention centres in Jaffna district where civilians fleeing war in Vanni were held, sources in Jaffna said. The soldiers took away the 65 detainees to the SLA Special Rehabilitation Camp (SRC) in Thellippa’lai claiming they were involved in terrorist activities. Though this matter was expected to be raised in the Tuesday meeting in Jaffna Secretariat held to discuss the problems faced by the inmates in the SLA detention centres, none of the representatives of the local and international organizations serving the interests of children, including UNICEF and the education officials, had mentioned the abduction of the detainees by SLA soldiers during the week-end, Jaffna Secretariat sources said.
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'It is not the way for post-conflict ambitions,' say London protestors

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 07 April 2009, 16:33 GMT]
“The spontaneous demonstrations that are taking place in world capitals are a result of the failure of deliberations between community elders and the ruling circles of the International Community," said 17-year-old M. Kavitha who got injured in police charging during the protest in London on Tuesday. "The younger generation of the diaspora, disillusioned over the elder’s faith in the IC governments, has taken to the streets now,” she said commenting on the continued agitation taking place outside the Houses of Parliament in London since Monday by angry Eezham Tamil protestors demanding Britain to act immediately to bring in ceasefire in Sri Lanka. The protestors defied normal British procedures of getting prior permission in staging their demonstration.
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No more excuses in waging the war - Protestors in Oslo

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 07 April 2009, 08:09 GMT]
"Colombo, which wages a brutal war, and its main war-partner, the Indian Establishment, which sets the agenda and the International Community that viciously abets the war, have no more justification or excuses in continuing the war," said T. Raju, a young Tamil diaspora activist who talked to media while hundreds of Norwegian Tamils gathered Tuesday in front of the Norwegian Parliament in Oslo to protest against the Sri Lankan war. "Only a few hundred LTTE cadres remain in Vanni was the estimation of Colombo’s military, a few weeks ago. Colombo claimed that nearly 500 LTTE cadres were killed this weekend. Therefore any further war only means open genocide of people," he said.
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24 Tamil youths arrested in Colombo

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 07 April 2009, 03:17 GMT]
Sri Lanka Army (SLA) and police arrested 24 Tamil youths Saturday and Sunday in the suburbs of Colombo city, according to complaints made to Deputy Minister P. Rathakrishnan by the youths’ relatives. Meanwhile, security measures in Colombo have been strengthened on the assumption that Liberation Tigers may launch attacks in Colombo during the forth coming New Year celebrations, police spokesman Ranjith Gunasekara said.
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British Tamils block Westminster Bridge, demand ceasefire

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 07 April 2009, 01:16 GMT]
More than 5,000 British Tamils on Monday launched a sit in outside the House of Commons in London demanding an immediate stop to Sri Lanka's "genocidal war" against Eezham Tamils. The protest, led by youth, started in the green opposite the British parliament Monday noon and the demonstrators moved to Bridge Street blocking all traffic through Westminster Bridge and Victoria Embankment around 3.00 p.m. The protesters waved hundreds of Tamil Eelam national flags and carried signs and placards depicting the plight of civilians being killed in the attacks by the Sri Lankan forces and demanded an immediate ceasefire.
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Threat of starvation haunts "Safe Zone" families

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 07 April 2009, 00:56 GMT]
Subasan, a 24-year-old fisherman originally from Muzhangkaavil in Naachchikkuda, displaced at least 29 times to date and now wounded in Sri Lanka Army (SLA) shelling inside the so-called safe zone, told TamilNet correspondent in Vanni Sunday, that his family is traumatized by the daily hardships, and that his family faces starvation due to shortage of food. Subasan said his family lead a reasonably comfortable life from his earnings from fishing. His dire economic situation has forced his pregnant wife to now sell their tarpaulin sheet for Rs.1,400 to take care of him.
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Ten Tamils arrested in Uppuve'li

[TamilNet, Monday, 06 April 2009, 21:43 GMT]
Trincomalee police took into custody ten Tamil youths, majority of them are youths Sunday in a cordon and search operation in several areas in Uppuve'li police division in Trincomalee district.
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Jaffna youth reported missing in Colombo

[TamilNet, Monday, 06 April 2009, 15:31 GMT]
A Tamil youth returning from an Arab country had gone missing since 20 February in front of Fort Railway Station as he was about to travel to Trincomalee to board the ship to Jaffna from Trincomalee harbour, according to a complaint made to Human Rights Commission (HRC) Jaffna office by his wife.
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