Pope’s emissary visits Jaffna

[TamilNet, Saturday, 07 February 2009, 17:18 GMT]
Representative of the Holy See from Vatican, Bishop Rt. Rev. Mario Senario, is on a visit to Jaffna to meet the displaced Tamils detained in camps in Jaffna and to learn of their situation, Jaffna Bishop’s House sources said. Biship Senario will also discuss the plight of the Tamils caught in war in Vanni. Jaffna Bishop, Rt. Rev. Thomas Saundaranayagam, and Rt. Rev. Mario Senario will also hold jointly a special mass for the safety of the Tamils in Vanni and for permanent peace for the Tamils in Sri Lanka Sunday 7:30 a.m. in St. Mary’s Church, Jaffna, sources added.
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Armed men shoot Tamil youth dead in Mannaar playground

[TamilNet, Saturday, 07 February 2009, 12:24 GMT]
A Tamil youth playing in a playground in Keeri in Mannaar town was shot dead by armed men arrived in a van on Thursday evening. Keeri playground is located along Mannaar-Thaazhvupaadu road. The victim was identified as Paththinathan Thavaseelan, a displaced from Naakathaazhvu in Mannaar and currently residing in Periyakaamam 100-houses scheme, according to complaints lodged with the Mannaar police.
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SLA hands over body of Tamil farmer to Vaazhaichcheanai hospital

[TamilNet, Saturday, 07 February 2009, 08:39 GMT]
Sri Lanka Army (SLA) soldiers in Paduvaankarai in Batticaloa district handed the body of a Tamil farmer Friday morning to Vaazhaichcheanai hospital claiming that he had committed suicide by taking poison, sources in Batticaloa said. Vaazhaichcheanai district magistrate who held the inquest into the death ordered Vaazhaichcheanai police to find the true cause of death and submit the report before 12 February.
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CNN edits out Genocide charges against Sri Lanka, complains M.I.A

[TamilNet, Saturday, 07 February 2009, 04:54 GMT]
Oscar and Grammy award nominee, Eezham born music phenom, Maya Arulpragasam, uses "her fame to shed light on a growing international conflict" CNN says in its website. During an interview with CNN's Kareen Wynter, Friday, pointing an accusing finger at the Government of Sri Lanka for killing Tamil civilians, Maya says, "Tamils who are a bunch of people in Sri Lanka, are being wiped out; I am one of those people who made it out. My school got bombed, people in my village are getting killed," and adds that she needs music to get all this information out. Reliable sources told TamilNet that the singer accused CNN for editing out her references to Sri Lanka's Genocide, and for attempting to associate her music with violence.
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CPI leader's car set on fire in Chennai

[TamilNet, Friday, 06 February 2009, 22:25 GMT]
Communist Party of India (CPI) Tamil Nadu State Secretary D. Pandian's car and a moped parked in his A'n'naa Nakar (Anna Nagar) residence were set on fire by unidentified persons Thursday night, media reports from Chennai said. Mr. Pandian was away in Mathurai (Madurai) at that time.
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Fonseka, Gotabaya Genocide charges filed with US Justice Dept

[TamilNet, Friday, 06 February 2009, 19:39 GMT]
Bruce Fein, counsel for US-based group Tamils Against Genocide (TAG), Thursday afternoon 3:00 p.m. submitted to United States Attorney General, Mr Eric Holder, the Model Indictment charging U.S. citizen and Sri Lanka's Defense Secretary, Gotabaya Rajapaksa, and U.S. green card holder and Sri Lanka's Army Commander, Sarath Fonseka, for genocide, war crimes and torture against Tamils in Sri Lanka. The Counsel urged the Department to open a grand jury investigation into the crimes, based on evidence amassed in the three volume 1000-page document which the Counsel said "amply satisfies the Department's threshold for commencing a criminal investigation."
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Tamil youth recovered dead in Batticaloa

[TamilNet, Friday, 06 February 2009, 17:15 GMT]
Ka’luvaangchchikkudi police recovered the body of a Tamil youth with gunshot wounds Friday in Onthaachchimadam area in Batticaloa district. The youth had gone missing since 29 January after going to Erivil area with his friends from his village in Kokkaddichchoalai police division in Batticaloa district, the police said.
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Tigers seize SLA arms storage in PTK

[TamilNet, Friday, 06 February 2009, 16:02 GMT]
Liberation Tigers of Tamileelam (LTTE) this week seized an arms storage from the Sri Lanka Army (SLA) in Puthukkudiyiruppu (PTK), sources close to LTTE told TamilNet Friday. Hundreds of SLA crack commandos were drawn into Mannaka'ndal and Keappaapulavu 'boxes' and were cut off from their rear supplies during a pre-emptive strike by the Tiger forces, resulting in the loss of more than one thousand SLA soldiers since February 01. An arms storage, which was full of weapons as the SLA was in full preparation to launch its 'final assault' on PTK was seized by the Tiger commandos engaged in the preemptive strike.
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120 Tamil young men, women detained in Colombo

[TamilNet, Friday, 06 February 2009, 15:07 GMT]
120 Tamil young men and women arrested during the past one week in Colombo and its suburbs are being detained though they had produced the necessary documents of identification to the police, according to complaints made by relatives to Deputy Minsiter, P. Rathakrishnan.
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Sinhala mob stones ICRC office in Colombo

[TamilNet, Friday, 06 February 2009, 10:03 GMT]
Unruly mobs surrounded and stoned the main office of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in the capital Colombo on Friday afternoon. The attack comes hours after a pro-government politician called for the expulsion of the ICRC chief Paul Castella following recent statements made by him on the ongoing conflict in the north between the Sri Lankan military and the Liberation Tigers of Tamileelam (LTTE).
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Minister, members come hard on Colombo in British Parliament

[TamilNet, Friday, 06 February 2009, 08:04 GMT]
The situation in Sri Lanka is nothing short of shocking. Any attempts, including by representatives of the Sri Lanka government to defend the shelling of the [Puthukkudiyiruppu] hospital are frankly unacceptable. Such attacks are serious violations of international humanitarian law, said Bill Rummell, Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office, in the British Parliament on Thursday. “The statement made by the Sri Lankan Government on Tuesday—that civilians should move out of the conflict area because they could no longer guarantee their safety—was extraordinarily worrying. […] The call for a temporary no-fire period by the [British] Foreign Secretary and Hillary Clinton this week should be acted upon immediately," he said.
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Emergency session of Canadian parliament discusses ceasefire, political solution

[TamilNet, Friday, 06 February 2009, 08:00 GMT]
Amidst demonstration and vigil of thousands of Canadian Eezham Tamils outside, and against the backdrop of Canadian government’s call for ceasefire coupled with 3 million dollars aid to the affected, the Canadian parliament had an emergency debate on the crisis in the island of Sri Lanka Wednesday that lasted four and a half hours. Cutting across party lines members were vocal in stressing the need for immediate ceasefire and federal perspectives of political solution. The balance of the debate was heavily against the Colombo government.
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Civilian sufferings unacceptable – Danish FM

[TamilNet, Friday, 06 February 2009, 06:31 GMT]
“The Danish government, greatly concerned about the situation of the civilians in the conflict areas in North Sri Lanka, is following the situation closely as well as is engaged in exerting pressure on the parties in conflict through institutions including the EU,” Denmark Foreign Minister, Per Stig Møller, said in a report 3 February. Around 4000 Tamils staged a demonstration 4 February starting from Copenhagen Town Hall to the entrance of the Danish Parliament, sources in Copenhagen said.
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SLA attacks 'safety zone' using short-range mortars, gunfire, claiming lives

[TamilNet, Thursday, 05 February 2009, 20:59 GMT]
Sri Lanka Army (SLA) on Thursday shell-attacked saftey zone in torrents not allowing people to come out of bunkers throughout the day in Chuthanthirapuram and Iruddumadu civilian refuges. Two of the sixteen dead bodies of civilians brought to hospital had gunfire injuries, according to medical sources. More than 6,000 shells exploded inside the safe zone, reported TamilNet correspondent amidst shelling audible throughout reporting. The SLA has deployed several short and medium range mortars to fire shells on Chunthanthirapuram and Iruddumadu.
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U.S. Tamils urge Ambassador Rice to intervene in Sri Lanka

[TamilNet, Thursday, 05 February 2009, 17:01 GMT]
More than 300 Tamils from New York/New Jersey area held a rally Wednesday afternoon in front of the U.S. Mission to U.N. to highlight the plight of Tamil civilians subjected to daily intense artillery attacks in Vanni, and the persistent human rights violations of the Sri Lanka military. The representatives of the awareness rally in a memorandum addressed to U.S. Ambassador to U.N., Susan Rice, noted her "passion and commitment to prevent genocide," and urged U.S. to "take immediate action to halt the genocide against the Tamils."
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IC abandons hope in liberal peace, seeks to live with Sinhala chauvinism - paper

[TamilNet, Thursday, 05 February 2009, 15:53 GMT]
The Co-Chairs statement this week marks the final collapse of the international liberal project in Sri Lanka, the Tamil Guardian newspaper’s editorial said this week. “The international actors who swaggered up in 2001 to make liberal peace in Sri Lanka never had the stomach to take on the Sinhala state's chauvinism. Instead they long pretended it doesn't exist, even as the signs were all around. Now, when it's in their faces, they simply bow to its ferocity - and ask the Tamils to do the same,” the paper said.
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‘Choices limited for the World of Authorities’

[TamilNet, Thursday, 05 February 2009, 15:44 GMT]
“A major problem with the world authorities today is that they live in their own world and try to look at the crisis in the island through their eyes. This is neo-Orientalism,” writes a New Delhi based scholar of South Asian studies in response to the recent stand of Tokyo Co-chairs. The way the world authorities have been grooming the situation in the island of Sri Lanka, they have narrowed down their choices. Either they have to separate the two ethnicities deeply divided by a protracted war by accepting the two nation states in the island, or allow the Sinhala nation’s attempt of genocide and total annihilation of Tamil identity, facing consequences of protracted turmoil coupled with global Tamil backfire. It is for the world authorities to decide whether their interests in Colombo are that worthy or important, he writes.
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Sri Lanka rejects Co-Chairs’ call for surrender negotiations

[TamilNet, Thursday, 05 February 2009, 10:56 GMT]
The Sri Lankan government has rejected the call by the Co-Chairs (US, EU, Japan and Norway) for the Tamil Tigers to negotiate terms of surrender with Colombo. Defence Secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa told the BBC that the government would accept only "unconditional surrender".
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India's top lawyers condemn Sri Lanka's genocide

[TamilNet, Thursday, 05 February 2009, 10:45 GMT]
India's Supreme Court Bar Association based in New Delhi has condmned the genocide on the tamil civilians by the Sri Lanka Government and the Security Forces. In an excutive meeting held Wednesday, the association also called upon the Goverment of India and UN to take steps to ensure ceasefire.
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Tamil Nadu, Puducherry shut down sends strong signals to State, Central Governments

[TamilNet, Thursday, 05 February 2009, 10:37 GMT]
In the face of severe threats from the State Government, the people of Tamil Nadu projected their unified voice of support for the Eelam Tamils by making the Wednesday general strike a grand success. More than 90 percent of the shops and commercial establishments throughout the state downed their shutters as a mark of solidarity. Although the umbrella front, Ilangkaith Thamizhar Paathukaappu Pearavai, which was recently formed to protect the Eezham Tamils, had announced the boycott, it was the spontaneous participation of the people of Tamil Nadu of all walks of life, made it a big success. Since the strike coincided with Sri Lanka's 61st independence day, the Sinhalese lion flag and Mahinda Rajapakse's effigy were burnt in several places.
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