Tamil Nadu activists attack Indian Army trucks

[TamilNet, Saturday, 02 May 2009, 18:06 GMT]
Activists belonging to the pro-Tamil nationalist Periyar Dravidar Kazhagam (PDK) attacked a convoy of military trucks of the Indian Army allegedly transporting weapons to Sri Lanka. Five trucks were damaged in the attack. Mortar shells were found in the trucks, sources in Chennai said.
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Sri Lanka’s democratically mandated genocide

[TamilNet, Saturday, 02 May 2009, 15:41 GMT]
"If Sri Lanka has reached the stage of having a 'democratically elected' government mandated for genocide by the ethnic majority, then that is the strongest reason why the country has to be democratically divided", writes TamilNet's political commentator in Colombo, responding to British envoy John Sawers' comment Thursday at UN that "Sri Lanka is a democratically elected government fighting a terrorist organization". Pointing out that this stand, worse than the fallacy of viewing an ethnic war as war on terrorism is not isolated in the IC, the commentator cautioned "as long as the IC, jaundiced in eyesight, fails to acknowledge that genocide and terrorism are 'democratically elected’ in Sri Lanka, they endanger democratic ideals globally” adding that "it is time for Tamil Nadu and the diaspora to demonstrate mandate for secession".
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China's 'anti-people' stand handicaps UN action

[TamilNet, Thursday, 30 April 2009, 03:45 GMT]
China’s anti-people stand to consider the war in Sri Lanka as internal matter, despite open massacre and imprisonment of the Colombo government of its own civilians using even prohibited weapons, will block formal discussions taking place in the UN Security Council Thursday, news reports indicate. The stand of China and Russia sitting on UN security Council, shielding Colombo’s genocide, exposes the ultimate results of the West's 'self-trap’ by tilting the military and diplomatic balance between Tamils and Sinhalese through twisting an ethnic war as war on terror, political observers said. The only possibility now for the West to save its credibility is revising its faulty policies and acting outside of the UN, they said.
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Rehabilitation symbols: How minds work in naming barbed-wire camps

[TamilNet, Thursday, 30 April 2009, 02:25 GMT]
Four major internment camps meant for the civilians of Vanni and envisaged as long-term detention-villages as a part of Colombo’s structural genocide of Tamils, have been named after Sir Ponnampalam Ramanathan, Sir Ponnampalam Arunachalam, Ananda K. Coomaraswamy and Lakshman Kadirgamar. All four of them belonged to two aristocratic families of Jaffna that had settled in Colombo. They served more to Colombo than to Tamil homeland. Two of them never spoke Tamil, but all of them in some way served Sinhala interests. The message is subtle: Look upon the supremacy of the Colombo-centric system and be subservient, never think of your own system, writes TamilNet’s regular political commentator in Colombo.
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IC has been duped by Colombo: Prof. Ramasamy

[TamilNet, Monday, 27 April 2009, 16:07 GMT]
The Tokyo-Co-chairs and other international actors have been duped in supporting the war aims of the Sri Lankan government, says Professor P. Ramasamy, Deputy Chief Minister of Penang, Malaysia, in an exclusive interview to TamilNet. “The LTTE is expression of Tamil discontent of the Sri Lankan government and the way the latter has dealt with the Tamil national question. In so far as the conflict in Aceh was concerned, the international community was much neutral in providing the political circumstances for peace to be achieved. However, in the Sri Lankan conflict, the international took a biased stand. The current issue is not one of positions between the warring parties, but one that re-focuses attention on the fallacy of the international community in searching for a just solution for Tamils in Sri Lanka”, he says.
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Sri Lanka continues air strikes violating own announcement - Puleedevan

[TamilNet, Monday, 27 April 2009, 07:45 GMT]
Two Sri Lanka Air Force (SLAF) fighter bombers continued to bomb civilian targets in Mu'l'li-vaaykkaal after the announcement by the Sri Lankan forces that it would not deploy heavy weapons or carry out air attacks as pressure mounted from the International Community. LTTE's Director of Peace Seceratariat, S. Puleedevan, when contacted by TamilNet told that SLAF bombers were attacking civilian targets at Mu'l'li-vaaykkaal at 12:50 p.m. and again at 1:10 p.m. despite the announcement to cease such attacks. He blamed Colombo for "attempting to deceive the International Community, including the people of Tamil Nadu," with the announcement.
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Independent Tamil Eelam only solution, we will fight to attain it: Jayalalitha

[TamilNet, Saturday, 25 April 2009, 22:13 GMT]
A separate Tamil Eelam is the only solution that will permanently put an end to the problems of the Tamil people in the island of Sri Lanka, said Tamil Nadu former Chief Minister and principal Leader of the Opposition, Ms. Jayalalitha at a election rally in Salem city Saturday. In a powerful, moving speech, she resolved to fight to attain independent Eelam.
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Demonising Tamil struggle without citing solutions

[TamilNet, Thursday, 23 April 2009, 11:40 GMT]
What the Sinhala government is now trying to do to the Tamil people is nothing new. Exactly the same thing was done in Vietnam by the US army, writes Indian journalist T.G. Jacob from Kerala. “Sri Lankan Tamil refugees are there all over Europe and their number in India is growing. All these factors make the situation even more highly volatile, which in all possibility will create new polarizations. The short term military defeat of LTTE cannot at all prevent the Tamil issue from becoming an international one and change to guerilla war within the island. That is why the Sri Lankan political leadership is talking of ‘protected’ villages. Actually this is exactly what is happening now. The Sri Lankan government through all its barbarity and outrageous double talk is immensely facilitating this process”, he writes.
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India unhappy of civilian killings, sees LTTE as "barbaric"

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 22 April 2009, 19:58 GMT]
A special meeting on the situation in Sri Lanka was convened at the residence of Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in New Delhi Wednesday night. At the end of the urgent meeting Indian External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee was quoted by the Press Trust of India as saying: "We are very unhappy at the continued killing of innocent Tamil civilians in Sri Lanka. These killings must stop." PTI also reported citing Mr. Pranab Mukherje that India asked LTTE to stop "barbaric" attempt to hold civilians hostage.
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"Inner well springs" of Tamil struggle can't be destroyed, says South African Minister

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 22 April 2009, 17:36 GMT]
South Africa's deputy minister for Communications, Radhakrishna Padayachie, has reiterated calls for bilateral talks between the Sri Lankan Government and the LTTE to establish a permanent peace. The African National Council (ANC) Member of Parliament, citing a "common conviction in the right to people for self determination" as the basis of continued relationship between his party and the LTTE, rejected suggestions that the LTTE can be defeated, and added that a political solution that addressed the "resolution of the minority question" was the only possible way forward.
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11 Tamil youths arrested in Colombo on New Year day

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 15 April 2009, 03:39 GMT]
Special Task Force (STF) commandos arrested eleven Tamil youths in a search conducted Wednesday in the suburbs of Colombo on the Tamil Sinhala New Year day, according to complaints made by the youths’ relatives to Deputy Minister P. Rathakrishnan.
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Last chance for Congress Establishment

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 15 April 2009, 02:26 GMT]
"The Indian Establishment has an arrogant way of reminding that it is the Eezham Tamils who will be needing India and not vice versa. But it is time to tell that they also will need us," writes a political analyst in Colombo. “There is an increasing tendency among Eezham Tamils today to rely more on the West for solutions and the blame squarely falls especially on the present Indian Establishment. Observers feel that in recent times the mounting anger of Eezham Tamils are more directed at perpetrators and abetters of the war than at Colombo, for it is always expected what the irredeemably chauvinistic state will do. If not for the abetters, the Tamils would have handled it on their own. In the Tamil mind, India tops the list of perpetrators and abetters”, writes the political analyst in Colombo who regularly contributes to TamilNet.
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'Three insults to Tamils for the traditional New Year'

[TamilNet, Sunday, 12 April 2009, 19:32 GMT]
Disguised insults meant against Tamil struggle this week bring out a picture of the attitudes operating in Colombo, New Delhi and Chennai, writes a political analyst in Colombo. “It is not exactly the Sri Lankan government, but the Sri Lankan state that is the core symbol of oppression in the island. Ethnic chauvinism is the cornerstone of this state. No liberation can come to Eezham Tamils unless this symbol is deconstructed. It is important for both Tamils and Sinhalese to see that accepting this symbol as it is now, or imposing this symbol as the basis of any political discourse, will never pave way for peace of both.”
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Halt mass murder of Tamils, South Asians appeal to UN, India

[TamilNet, Saturday, 11 April 2009, 20:16 GMT]
In a letter addressed to the UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon, Head of UNHCR, Navi Pillay, and to the Indian Priime Minister Manmohan Singh, several rights activists, journalists, and eminent citizens of India and Nepal, expressed concern about report of mass deaths of Tamil civilians in the Vanni region, and demanded that "UN and the International Community immediately intervene to ensure immediate cessation of the brutal and savage war in the Vanni region of Sri Lanka and ensure immediate humanitarian relief to the suffering thousands caught in the middle of the war." The South Asian citizens also urged all "National Governments to oppose all forms of financial aid to Sri Lanka until it ceases the war against its own citizens and ensures humanitarian aid and relief to be reached to the suffering thousands caught up in the Vanni region."
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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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Apply adequate pressure on Colombo for ceasefire and negotiations: LTTE

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 31 March 2009, 01:09 GMT]
The LTTE is not a movement believing that war is the only means to achieve the aspirations of the people it represents. But, political solution needs an environment conducive to it. The IC can play a positive role by adequately pressurizing Colombo for ceasefire and by promoting negotiations between GoSL and the LTTE as equal partners with due recognition, said Selvaraja Pathmanathan, the LTTE plenipotentiary for international relations, in an interview to TamilNet on Monday. On the issue of civilians, Mr. Pathmanathan said they have already asked the IC, what international instruments now hold GoSL accountable for the denial of basic rights of the people already moved and presently living in the internment camps.
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Arundhati Roy: "Colossal humanitarian tragedy"

[TamilNet, Monday, 30 March 2009, 00:52 GMT]
Pointing an accusing finger at the Indian Government for silence on the unfolding tragedy in Sri Lanka, Arundhati Roy, writer and activisit, in an article appearing in Times of India says, "while the killing continues, while tens of thousands of people are being barricaded into concentration camps, while more than 200,000 face starvation, and a genocide waits to happen, there is dead silence from this great country [India]. It’s a colossal humanitarian tragedy. The world must step in. Now. Before it’s too late."
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Ullaik-kazhi / Ullaik-ka’li

[TamilNet, Thursday, 26 March 2009, 00:15 GMT]
The backwaters of Ullam fish (Tenualosa ilisha)
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EU Parliament passes significant resolution

[TamilNet, Thursday, 12 March 2009, 21:43 GMT]
The EU Parliament Thursday passed a resolution, with a large majority, calling for immediate ceasefire between the Sri Lanka Army and Liberation Tigers of Tamileelam in order to allow the civilian population to leave the combat zone. Condemning all acts of violence against civilians in the safe zone and expressing serious concern for the plight of the people in the refugee camps run by the Sri Lankan government, the EU Parliament demanded full and unhindered access to international and national humanitarian organisations, as well as journalists to the combat zone and to the refugee camps.
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Menon wants civilians issue and war ending in Colombo’s favour

[TamilNet, Thursday, 12 March 2009, 10:32 GMT]
The Indian Foreign Secretary Shiv Shankar Menon, has said in Washington that “civilians caught in the war should be safely moved to government-controlled areas”, PTI reported Thursday. Wrapping up his four days US visit and briefing that both India and the US have similar approaches to address the issue in Sri Lanka, he envisaged rehabilitation, reconstruction and building up normal economic life of people “once these areas are cleared or under the government control.” He also said on the need “to bring in the kind of the political steps including devolution”, according to the PTI report. Whatever Menon said in Washington doesn’t significantly differ from the verbal stance adopted by Mahinda Rajapaksa government, aiming for victory and subjugation of Tamils, said political observers in Colombo.
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