Reaping what they sowed: former US diplomats write to SL President

[TamilNet, Friday, 23 January 2009, 12:01 GMT]
Six former US ambassadors served in Colombo since 1989 have written a letter in their personal capacity to Mr. Mahinda Rajapaksa, expressing their deep concern about internal threats destabilizing ‘democracy’ in Sri Lanka. They were particularly upset over the assassination of the Editor of Sunday Leader, Mr. Lasantha Wickrematunge. "The civilized world has to appreciate these diplomats voicing for a bold, sane and humane journalist," said a political commentator based in Colombo, adding however that their letter is an "open confession of the reactionary premises taken by them and by their government in the last two decades, which in fact externally contributed to the destruction of the substance of democracy in the island, retaining only a brittle shell that is crumbling now."
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7 prominent journalists flee Sri Lanka

[TamilNet, Friday, 23 January 2009, 07:30 GMT]
With the assassination of veteran editor of Sunday Leader Lasantha Wickrematunge seven Sri Lankan prominent journalists have left the country, a journalist stationed outside Sri Lanka told TamilNet Friday. Meanwhile, media reports said an editor of a pro-government Sinhala weekly 'Rivira', Upali Tennakoon, and his wife were severely assaulted by a group that arrived in motorbikes Friday morning while he was driving his car to work on Kandy Road, Imbulgoda in Gampaha district.
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Tamil Nadu gears up for more protests

[TamilNet, Friday, 23 January 2009, 05:27 GMT]
A state-wide common front of college and university students' organisations in Tamil Nadu launched protests against New Delhi and the state government demanding immediate action in stopping the war, which seeks to subjugate Tamil people who have refused to surrender into the hands of the Sri Lanka Army despite the physical and psychological war on them. 200,000 students took part in the 32 districts of the state on Wednesday, according to Dr. Vengadachalam, the organisor of the College Students' Coordinating Committee, a newly formed alliance of the students' organisations.
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Ambush kills 3 Sri Lankan soldiers in Batticaloa - LTTE

[TamilNet, Friday, 23 January 2009, 04:54 GMT]
Liberation Tigers of Tamileelam (LTTE) officials in East claimed Friday that 3 Sri Lankan military personnel were killed in a Claymore ambush Thursday night around 8:50 while the group of military personnel were on a road patrol along the railway track between Vanthaa'rumooalai and Maavadiveampu.
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LTTE releases Sri Lankan Prisoner of War

[TamilNet, Friday, 23 January 2009, 03:27 GMT]
Liberation Tigers of Tamileelam (LTTE) on Thursday handed over a Sri Lanka Army (SLA) soldier, who was captured by the Tigers in December in Ki'laali Forward Defence Line. The soldier was undergoing treatment at Puthukkudiyiruppu hospital at the time of his release.
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Stop calling genocide a war on terrorism

[TamilNet, Friday, 23 January 2009, 02:55 GMT]
India and the so-called international community continue to demonstrate with adamancy and arrogance that they have no interest in stopping the genocide of Tamils in the island of Sri Lanka but they would rather abet it in the name of war on terrorism. The people of Tamil Nadu and the Tamil diaspora all over the world should realize that these elements are not going to listen to pleading, but will respond only when their interests are at stake. It is time that demonstrations are to be directed against them with a clear message that their strategic and economic interests will definitely be at stake by losing popular trust if they continue to play the malevolent game with the lives of Tamils, says the gist of a volume of opinion mails received by TamilNet.
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Germany calls for Ceasefire between GoSL, LTTE

[TamilNet, Friday, 23 January 2009, 01:51 GMT]
German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier called Thursday for an immediately negotiated ceasefire between the Government of Sri Lanka (GoSL) and the Liberation Tigers of Tamileelam (LTTE), stating that the ceasefire should enable aid deliveries and medical care for the civilians in the disputed areas.
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Swiss Tamil youth demonstrate in front of UN

[TamilNet, Friday, 23 January 2009, 00:01 GMT]
Tamils living in Switzerland marched from the Geneva Main Railway station to the United Nations Wednesday evening urging the international community to stop the genocidal war on the Tamils in Vanni in the island of Sri Lanka and to apply pressure on the Government of Sri Lanka to bring about an immediate cease fire.
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Denounce Sri Lankan identity, readers show ways

[TamilNet, Thursday, 22 January 2009, 23:26 GMT]
As a democratic move, based on principles of non-violence and non-cooperation, the Eezham Tamils should boldly denounce the Sri Lankan identity being imposed on them by the Sinhala government and the world of authoritarians, reads a significant theme of the opinion mails received by TamilNet in response to its request last Friday. “The move should begin from the diaspora for whom it is feasible now and it goes beyond any political or organizational affiliation. The diaspora ought to realize that what is more dangerous than the war camouflaged to be against the LTTE is the adamancy of India and international authoritarians not recognizing the national cause of Eezham Tamils”.
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LTTE recovers 13 SLA dead bodies in Kallaa'ru front

[TamilNet, Thursday, 22 January 2009, 16:43 GMT]
Liberation Tigers of Tamileelam (LTTE) officials Thursday said their defensive formations put up stiff resistance against the Sri Lanka Army (SLA) that attempted to advance through Kallaa'ru in Northwestern front, killing 40 SLA soldiers and causing injuries to 70. The Tigers have claimed that the SLA attempt to advance was thwarted after heavy fighting.
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Paramilitary releases 15 young recruits in Batticaloa

[TamilNet, Thursday, 22 January 2009, 15:46 GMT]
Due to the pressure exerted by UNICEF on TMVP Pillayan faction (Tamil Makal Viduthalai Pulikal) to release the children abducted and given military training by it, 15 of them were released in the presence of UNICEF officials Thursday in Batticaloa. The released children were produced in Batticaloa magistrate court through Batticaloa police where the magistrate directed the police to place them in the protective care of the ‘Sarvodaya’ in Chaththurukko'ndaan until 29 January, Batticaloa police said.
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SLA arrests 3 Tamil civilians in Ki'n'niyaa

[TamilNet, Thursday, 22 January 2009, 14:07 GMT]
Three Tamil civilians were taken into custody in a cordon and search operation conducted by the Sri Lanka Army (SLA) and police at Chinnath-thoaddam in Ki'n'niyaa division in Trincomalee district Wednesday evening.
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Military was provided with exact coordinates of hospital - Mullai RDHS

[TamilNet, Thursday, 22 January 2009, 13:33 GMT]
The Government hospital of Mullaiththeevu was shifted to Va'l'lipunam 'Peace' Village and the Sri Lankan government as well as the military authorities were provided the Global Positioning System (GPS) coordinates through the ICRC, Dr. T. Varatharajah told TamilNet, when asked to describe the status of security measures taken by the local medical authorities in the hospital. Three days ago, the ICRC Deputy Director was present at the hospital premises to assure it, he said. The ICRC was present Wednesday at the hospital to confirm the security.
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Hospital bombed, 5 killed, 15 wounded

[TamilNet, Thursday, 22 January 2009, 08:56 GMT]
The Intensive Care Unit (ICU) and the surgical site of the Mullaiththeevu hospital, functioning as a makeshift hospital at Va'l'lipunam school, were damaged in Sri Lanka Army (SLA) artillery fire Wednesday night and Thursday around 12:20 p.m., after the Sri Lankan government declared that the area where the hospital is situated is a "secure zone", medical authorities at the hospital said Thursday. Five civilians were killed within the hospital premises Thursday, according to Dr. T. Varatharajah, the Regional Director of Health Services (RDHS). The RDHS confirmed that the ICRC had verified that the Sri Lankan military had received the GPS coordinates of the hospital and said he was in constant touch with the ICRC, located just 1 km away from the hospital.
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STF commando killed, 2 injured in Poththuvil

[TamilNet, Thursday, 22 January 2009, 07:21 GMT]
A Special Task Force (STF) commando was killed and two seriously injured in a direct clash between Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) combatants and STF commandos Wednesday around 10:00 a.m in a jungle area in Poththuvil in Ampaa’rai district, LTTE sources in Ampaa’rai said.
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TNA urges IC to put an end to genocidal war

[TamilNet, Thursday, 22 January 2009, 03:26 GMT]
The Tamil National Alliance (TNA) in a press release issued on Wednesday urged the International Community to prevail upon the Sri Lankan state to bring the war to an immediate end stating that It is the considered view of the TNA that the Sri Lankan State is prosecuting the current war in pursuit of an ideology, namely the assertion of Sinhala Buddhist supremacist nationalism, and in order to achieve that objective a process of Genocide of the Tamil people is in progress. The inhuman conditions and the daily killings to which the Tamil civilians in LTTE controlled areas are being subjected to are only the more obvious elements of this process, the statement by the TNA said.
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British FO sabotaging Tamil national question condemned

[TamilNet, Thursday, 22 January 2009, 03:13 GMT]
A statement released by the British Secretary of State for Foreign & Commonwealth Affairs on Wednesday, totally ignoring the national basis of the decades old Tamil struggle and treating the humanitarian crisis of civilians as an outcome of terrorism is strongly condemned by Jaffna district Tamil National Alliance (TNA) Parliamentarian S. Gajendran, who added: The preaching of the modern "corporate religion of greed" to Tamils seems to be "submit yourself to thy genocidal killers."
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Tamil farmer shot dead in Trincomalee

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 21 January 2009, 16:55 GMT]
Unidentified gunmen shot dead a Tamil young farmer at Thangkanakar in Seruvila division in Trincomalee district on Monday early morning in his house. The assassins came in a motorbike and killed the farmer in point blank range.
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Sri Lankan fighter jet reported missing in Northern frontier

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 21 January 2009, 15:55 GMT]
A Sri Lanka Air Force (SLAF) MIG fighter jet was shot in the skies over Vanni on Wednesday, according to initial reports from journalists outside Sri Lanka, who cited a highly placed source in Vanni Sri Lankan Forces Headquarters (Vanni SF-HQ). The Liberation Tigers of Tamileelam (LTTE) officials were not available to comment on the reports.
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IC urged to act on humanitarian grounds to safeguard civilians

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 21 January 2009, 12:45 GMT]
Sri Lanka Army (SLA) has cornered civilians in overcrowded areas in the suburbs of Puthukkudiyiruppu (PTK) town, according to sources in Vanni. While artillery shells exploding in densely populated makeshift settlements have caused several civilian casualties, civilians are fleeing from indiscriminate bombardment from air and ground are forced to seek shelters throughout the day, civil sources from Vanni said. IDPs' representatives express fear that those who fall into the hands of SLA units are likely to be forcibly transported under close military supervision to detention centre style camps at locations isolated from mainstream communities, as evidenced in Mannaar and in areas north of the recently SLA-occupied Elephant Pass.
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