Detainees in SLA camps in Jaffna lack freedom, facilities - NGO representatives

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 17 March 2009, 18:42 GMT]
Representatives of Non-governmental organizations in Jaffna peninsula who visit the Sri Lanka Army (SLA) controlled detention camps in Jaffna district expressed concern for detainees who lack clothes, proper food except the dry food rations provided by the government, besides being denied permission meet their relatives. Meanwhile, Jaffna Government Agent, in his press report Tuesday, has detailed a long list of assistances given by the District Government Secretariat and the Divisional Secretariats to improve living conditions of the said detainees, sources in Jaffna said.
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604 SLA killed in 3 days - LTTE media

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 17 March 2009, 17:53 GMT]
The Voice of Tigers, the radio broadcast of the Liberation Tigers of Tamileelam (LTTE) in its evening broadcast on Tuesday said that 604 Sri Lanka Army (SLA) soldiers were killed in heavy fighting in Puthukkudiyiruppu. Several hundred soldiers were wounded in the fighting, according to the VoT.
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40,000 Tamils stage protests in front of EU, UN in Europe

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 17 March 2009, 16:14 GMT]
More than 25,000 Tamils, especially youth, across the Europe took to the streets of Brussels on Monday demanding EU to de-proscribe the Liberation Tigers of Tamileelam, to exert pressure on the Sri Lankan government to allow medicine and food to the civilians besieged by its military in all fronts and to demand the Sri Lankan military to pull out from the Tamil homeland. The organisers blamed the EU's misguided policy on proscribing the LTTE as having tilted the diplomatic balance between the parties, causing the war of aggression against the Tamils by the Sri Lankan state. Meanwhile more than 10,000 Tamils staged a protest in front of the UN office in Geneva.
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SLA shoots dead 2 Tamil civilians in Batticaloa

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 17 March 2009, 16:34 GMT]
Sri Lanka Army (SLA) soldiers shot and killed Sunday two Tamil civilians who had gone to collect firewood in in Mathurangku’lam and Kaddum’rivu jungles in Vaakarai in Batticaloa district, sources in Batticaloa said. SLA claimed that the two killed were Liberation Tigers and that T56 type rifles were recovered from them. The bodies of the victims remain unidentified in Vaakarai government hospital.
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18 civilians reported missing in 'safe-zone' border

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 17 March 2009, 14:21 GMT]
18 civilians who had gone to pluck coconuts in I'ranaippaalai area taking risks amid shelling and firing are yet to return, according to their relatives inside the 'safety zone', TamilNet correspondent reported Tuesday morning.
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'Safe zone' under encircling fire, 137 killed in 3 days, ICRC worker wounded

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 17 March 2009, 12:48 GMT]
137 people have died and more than 200 injured since Saturday night in Sri Lanka Army shelling and gunfire inside the 'safe zone' of Vanni. At least 18 of them have died hit by long-range gunfire coming from SLA attacking the civilian zone. Meanwhile, massive bunker buster bombs numbering around 50 dropped by the Sri Lanka Air Force (SLAF) on the fringes of the 'safe zone' on Tuesday caused untold panic among the civilians.
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ICRC transports 440 wounded to Indian military hospital in Pulmoaddai

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 17 March 2009, 11:18 GMT]
The makeshift-hospital in Puthumaaththa'lan on Monday said 440 patients were taken on board in the ICRC ship "Green Ocean." Meanwhile, sources in Colombo said the ICRC was instructed to transport the patients to the hospital run by Indian paramedics in Pulmoaddai. In the meantime, doctors at the hospital who were on duty on Monday were not able to treat patients as the no medicines at the hospital. A shipment of humanitarian supplies was expected on Tuesday, the officials in Vanni told TamilNet Monday.
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Allow ICRC to transport medicines, RDHS urge Sri Lankan Health Ministry

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 17 March 2009, 10:40 GMT]
Regional Directors of Health Services for Ki'linochchi and Mullaiththeevu districts, Dr. T. Varatharajah and Dr. T. Saththiyamoorthy, Monday jointly urged the Sri Lankan Ministry of Health to supply medicines intended for the civilians in Vanni at least in the next ICRC shipment. Only 5% of the combined quota of medicine and dressings meant for the last quarter of 2008 and the first quarter of this year was earlier transported by the ICRC. "We were shocked and felt very sad when we were informed by the ICRC that no medicines have been handed over by the ministry officials to be taken in the ship," the doctors said. "Many deaths could have been prevented if basic infrastructure facilities and essential medicines were made available."
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Tamils jam Toronto, demand Sri Lanka to stop genocide

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 17 March 2009, 03:14 GMT]
More than 100,000 expatriate Tamils crowded downtown Toronto between 1:00 p.m. and 6:00 p.m. Monday to raise the plight of the more than 250,000 Tamil civilians trapped in the war in Vanni, and subjected to continuous artillery attacks and aerial bombardment by Sri Lanka military. Cries of 'genocide' and accusations of human rights abuses were heard throughout the protest, as the protesters held a giant hand-in-hand human chain that stretched along Bloor, Yonge, Front and across to University Avenue. Police officials said this was the largest ever rally held in Toronto.
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Cruelty of disinformation

[TamilNet, Monday, 16 March 2009, 14:29 GMT]
TamilNet Sunday published news and photographs on the plight of pregnant mothers, newborn babies and babies in the wombs affected by the inhuman shelling and bombing by the Colombo government on the 'safe zone' declared for civilians. This information on hard truth has stirred Colombo's disinformation agencies to discredit TamilNet by bringing in trivial matters such as the camera time-settings of the photographs taken in the makeshift-hospital.
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5 Tamil youths arrested in Colombo

[TamilNet, Monday, 16 March 2009, 06:32 GMT]
Sri Lanka police took into custody Monday five Tamil youths who were walking along the streets in Colombo Fort and Petta areas, relatives of the youths said. Many Tamils on the streets were checked and interrogated by the police who also checked their vehicles, in this operation.
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Tamil woman abducted in Ampaa’rai

[TamilNet, Monday, 16 March 2009, 06:16 GMT]
Unidentified armed men abducted 9 March a Tamil woman, a mother of three children, in Poththuvil police division in Ampaa’rai district, according to the complaint lodged by her relatives at Poththuvil police station. No action has been taken on the complaint yet, the relatives said.
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Boyle warns UN repeating Srebrenica debacle in Vanni

[TamilNet, Monday, 16 March 2009, 03:41 GMT]
Pointing out that “in 1995 the United Nations Organization as a whole was fully complicit in Serbia's genocidal massacre of 8500 Bosnian Muslim men and boys at Srebrenica in violation of Article III (e) of the 1948 Genocide Convention that prohibited, criminalized and required the punishment of: 'Complicity in genocide'," Professor Francis Boyle, an expert in international law and a professor at Illinois College of Law, said that it looks as if "the United Nations is now repeating one of the most shameless and disgraceful debacles in its entire history in today's Vanni Pocket by becoming complicit in Sri Lanka's genocide against the Tamils there.”
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Nadesan urges UN to investigate Colombo's War Crimes

[TamilNet, Sunday, 15 March 2009, 08:19 GMT]
B. Nadesan, the political head of the Liberation Tigers of Tamileelam (LTTE) Sunday said the Tigers had "plenty of evidences" to document that the Sri Lankan government of Mahinda Rajapaksa was "intentionally directing attacks against civilians," committing war crimes and crimes against humanity when asked to comment on the recent statement issued by the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR). The UN High Commissioner had warned that the actions by the warring parties could amount to war crimes.
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Pungkudutheevu Catholics march for peace

[TamilNet, Sunday, 15 March 2009, 07:14 GMT]
Hundreds of Catholic men, women and children went on a Lent Period march for peace, calling to stop the humanitarian disaster in Vanni caused by the relentless and indiscriminate attacks on innocent Tamils unleashed by the government of Sri Lanka, Saturday. The procession started around 5:30 a.m from Pungkudutheevu Savariar Catholic Church and ended at St. Mary’s Church in Chaaddi, Veala’nai, sources in Jaffna said.
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Fein invites Patton Boggs for debate at Press Club

[TamilNet, Saturday, 14 March 2009, 18:56 GMT]
Bruce Fein, former Associate Deputy Attorney General under President Reagan and counsel for a Washington-based Tamil activist group, has invited Patton Boggs LLP, the Washington Law firm retained by the Government of Sri Lanka for advocacy work in the U.S., for a debate at the National Press Club to defend the President of Sri Lanka and his inner circle against credible allegations of genocide under the Genocide Accountability Act (GAA).
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Ask people their choice - LTTE

[TamilNet, Saturday, 14 March 2009, 18:04 GMT]
Have those who advocate evacuation ever cared to ask the concerned civilians whether they want to leave? What will they do if people refuse evacuation? Will they allow them to be killed, asked Yogaratnam Yogi, LTTE military advisor in Vanni in a speech given by him to the LTTE broadcast, Voice of Tigers, Thursday. Why are the governments reluctant to ask our people whether they want to live under the Sri Lanka government or under their own government? They don’t ask because they know the answer. Our request to the world is to pose this question to the people and make decisions rather than attempting through murder and denial of food, in the belief of forcing the people to accept the Sri Lankan regime, Yogi said.
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Pathmanathan welcomes US shift in approach

[TamilNet, Saturday, 14 March 2009, 14:51 GMT]
"We have been hoping for such a fresh approach to the longstanding but little understood problem of the Eezham Tamils in the island of Sri Lanka," said Selvaraja Pathmanathan, the newly appointed LTTE plenipotentiary for international relations, when contacted by TamilNet for his response on US Secretary of State, Hilary Clinton’s statement Friday. “An immediate ceasefire can stop the killing of civilians and will pave way for other measures to take effect in a more acceptable manner to the affected people”, he further said, adding, “ grief on one side and greed on the other side have to be assessed impartially in working out a solution meeting the aspirations of all of Sri Lanka’s communities.
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Colombo-Vavuniyaa train service stops with Madawachchi

[TamilNet, Saturday, 14 March 2009, 14:13 GMT]
Vavuniyaa bound Yaazh Theavi (Yarl Devi) train service from Colombo has been curtailed up to Madawachchi due to 'security reasons' with effect from Thursday until further notice, media reports said. Railway Department, however, has not given the reason for the suspension of service, according to media reports.
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"Terrorists" likely perpetrated attacks on journalists, says Sri Lanka's Ambassador

[TamilNet, Saturday, 14 March 2009, 11:08 GMT]
In a meeting with a officials of the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), a New York-based media watchdog, Jaliya Wickramasuriya, Sri Lanka's Ambassador to the U.S. in responding to CPJ's accusation that "[t]here has been impunity for those who attack journalists in Sri Lanka, and there have been attempts to intimidate and silence critics of the government," denied there was any crisis of press freedom in Sri Lanka, and asserted that Sri Lanka's "image has been distorted. It has been called a place of violence, a place where journalists are threatened. But this image is not accurate," and added that "attacks on journalists may have been perpetrated by "terrorists" seeking to embarrass the government."
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