4 youths arrested in Gampaha

[TamilNet, Saturday, 24 May 2008, 11:48 GMT]
Four youths, one Tamil and three Sinhalese, were arrested in cordon and search operations conducted in the Gampaha police division from Wednesday evening till Thursday morning around 8 a.m. Police said they were being detained and interrogated as they failed to prove their identity and to give valid reason for their visit to Gampaha from outstations, media reports said.
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Southern fishermen told to register their crafts

[TamilNet, Saturday, 24 May 2008, 08:18 GMT]
Sinhalese fishermen in the south have been directed by the Department of Fisheries to register their fishing crafts before venturing in fishing. This is to enable the Sri Lanka Navy to identify illegal crafts in the southern sea to curb terrorist activity, media reports said.
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SLA accelerates colonization in Vaaka'rai

[TamilNet, Friday, 23 May 2008, 13:31 GMT]
Sinhalese fishermen from Puththa'lam, Chilaapam, and other areas of the island are being brought in increasing numbers into Vaaka'rai area in Koa’ra’laippattu North, Batticaloa district by the civilian coordinator of Sri Lanka Army (SLA), residents in the area said.
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Batticaloa Bishop holds meeting to defuse tension

[TamilNet, Thursday, 22 May 2008, 21:39 GMT]
A special conference was held Thursday afternoon 5:00 p.m.at the residence of Batticaloa Bishop’s to ease the tension prevailing in Kaaththaankudi, Batticaloa District in the aftermath of Thursday morning shooting incidents in the area that has so far claimed the lives of five men, sources in Batticaloa said.
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Muslims shot dead in revenge by paramilitary after the killing of key operative

[TamilNet, Thursday, 22 May 2008, 10:30 GMT]
Following the killing of a key paramilitary operative Shanthan and his associate of the TMVP Pillayan Group in the Muslim town of Kaaththaankudi around 11:40 a.m. Thursday, gunmen from the paramilitary group opened fire on Muslim travelers in the pre-dominant Tamil village Aaraiyampathi, 1.5 km south of the Muslim town, killing three Muslims, Police said. Four persons, including two Sinhalese were wounded. Tension prevails in Kaaththaankudi and Araiyampathi. Sri Lankan police and Special Task Force commandos have been deployed in the area. A local curfew was imposed and additional forces were sent to the border village, Police said.
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Ground facts, Rights lobby cause Sri Lanka's UN debacle

[TamilNet, Thursday, 22 May 2008, 00:27 GMT]
Despite determined lobbying by Colombo during and prior to the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) session at the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, the stark history of gross rights violations by Sri Lanka Security forces, the unfolding ground situation including the exit of International Independent Group of Eminent Persons (IIGEP) from rights monitoring from the island, and intense lobbying by several Rights organization including three Peace Nobel laureates, have led to the ignominous defeat of Sri Lanka Wednesday in securing the sought after coveted spot in the Human Rights Council of the UN.
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International Law, Human Rights will salute Tamil Statehood- Fein

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 20 May 2008, 21:52 GMT]
Quoting the words in the American declaration of Independence, “[b]ut when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce [a people] under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security,” Bruce Fein, Washington-based attorney for a Tamil Activist Group, and Chairman of the American Freedom Agenda, said Tuesday that Tamil Statehood is the immediate answer to save innocent lives, and that “[a]n international consensus on statehood would bring the war to a close, as it did in Kosovo.”
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2 Muslim youths arrested in Matara

[TamilNet, Friday, 16 May 2008, 17:33 GMT]
Matara Police Wednesday night arrested two Muslim youths who are residents of Sammanthurai in eastern province. They are being detained until Sammanthurai police verifies their background and the authenticity of their identity cards, police sources said.
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Pillayan sworn in as CM for Eastern Province

[TamilNet, Friday, 16 May 2008, 14:16 GMT]
Sivanesathurai Chandrakanthan alias Pillayan, the de-facto leader of the paramilitary-cum-political party, the TMVP, was sworn in as the Chief Minister for Eastern Province as M.L.A.M Hisbullah, who was competing with Chandrakanthan for the CM post, announced that he and two of his elected associates had decided to function separately. Mr. Hizbullah, who claimed that the swearing-in was unconstitutional boycotted the swearing-in ceremony which took place at the Sri Lankan Presidential Secretariat around 6:30 p.m. in front of the Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa.
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JHU opposes granting land, police powers to EPC

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 14 May 2008, 10:18 GMT]
The all-monks Sinhala Buddhist nationalist party, Jathika Hela Urumaya (JUH), which has 9 seats in the Sri Lankan parliament, has said that it would oppose granting "internal security and land allocation powers" to the newly elected Eastern Provincial Council (EPC). The All Party Representatives Committee (APRC) has not suggested anything about granting land and police powers to EPC at any stage, said Venerable Ellawela Methanananda Thera, leader of the JHU addressing media on Tuesday in Colombo. He added whether Pillaiyan or Hisbullah comes as chief minister, EPC should take immediate steps to "resettle all Sinhalese earlier chased out of the province."
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2 Jaffna youths, one Up-Country youth abducted in Colombo

[TamilNet, Monday, 12 May 2008, 17:59 GMT]
Three Tamil youths, two of them from of Jaffna and one from Badulla were abducted on Saturday from their lodges located along Kathiresan Street in Fort area in Colombo by unidentified armed men. The two youths from Jaffna had been staying in Colombo to go abroad and the upcountry Tamil youth had been a betel vendor.
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Widespread violence, last-hour ballot stuffing mark elections in East

[TamilNet, Saturday, 10 May 2008, 18:40 GMT]
Paramilitary TMVP personnel entered several polling stations in the Tamil areas in Batticaloa and Trincomalee and stuffed the ballot boxes forcefully during the last-hour, before the ballot boxes were removed to counting centers in Batticaloa. Meanwhile, election officials said an average of 60% voter turn-out was registered across the three districts in the East. The polling was high in Sinhalese and Muslim areas while an average of 45-50% votes were registered in Tamil areas. The Centre for Monitoring Election Violence (CMEV) has recorded 64 incidents at 6:00 p.m. Saturday. Majority of major offenses were committed in Batticaloa district, followed by Ampaa'rai (12) and Trincomalee (08).
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Sinhala thugs threaten, rob Piliyandala Tamil traders

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 07 May 2008, 17:40 GMT]
Tamil traders in Piliyandala are living in constant fear as Sinhala goons daily threaten them and rob their stocks of goods from their establishments. This has been going on since the Piliyandala bus bomb blast, media sources said.
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945 military personnel injured in April - SL Prime Minister

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 06 May 2008, 09:42 GMT]
Sri Lanka's Prime Minister Ratnasiri Wickramanayake, who opened the debate on the state of emergency in the Sri Lankan Parliament Tuesday morning said 945 Sri Lankan security personnel were wounded in April, from March 30 upto April 29. However, he put the death toll for the April at 120 killed in action. 56 civilians were killed and 145 wounded, including the bus bomb in Piliyandala. He said there were also Sinhalese who were involved in carrying out the attack on the civilian bus in Piliyandala.
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Batticaloa tops in poll related violence

[TamilNet, Monday, 05 May 2008, 17:53 GMT]
Twenty seven complaints of election related violence have been reported from the Batticaloa district till Monday evening as the election campaign is in full swing in towns and villages where Muslims and Sinhalese are living in majority. Campaign for Free and Fair Elections (CAFFE) said Tamils in the three districts are not showing any interest in the election, media sources said.
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We will restore democracy to Eastern province – Wickremesinghe

[TamilNet, Monday, 05 May 2008, 13:58 GMT]
“United National Party (UNP), Sri Lanka Muslim Congress (SLMC) alliance will restore democracy to the East by putting an end to the domination by paramilitary groups,” Ranil Wickremasinghe, the Leader of the Opposition and UNP head said Sunday addressing a SLMC party conference held in Kaaththaankudi attended by more than 10,000 Muslims from the north, east provinces, sources in Batticaloa said.
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Police recovers 10 kg claymore mine in Kandy

[TamilNet, Monday, 05 May 2008, 11:17 GMT]
Sri Lanka Police and Sri Lanka Army in a joint operation recovered a claymore mine weighing 10 kg from a house in Digana, a village located in Teldeniya police division in Kandy district, Sunday evening, media sources said.
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Indian Coast Guard arrests 65 Sri Lankan fishermen

[TamilNet, Saturday, 03 May 2008, 14:35 GMT]
Indian Coast Guard has arrested 65 Sri Lankan fishermen of Sinhalese origin in the past week for illegally fishing in Indian waters without carrying any valid documents. According to reports in the Indian media, a Coast Guard ship on routine offshore patrol had spotted a flotilla of trawlers moving 116 nautical miles off Chennai on April 27.
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JVP whips up anti-Indian rhetoric

[TamilNet, Friday, 02 May 2008, 10:11 GMT]
Somawansa Amarasinghe, the leader of the extreme Sinhala nationalist Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP), which recently suffered a split, has whipped up anti-Indian sentiments in his May Day address calling for protests against what he labeled as 'Indian hegemonic foreign policy'. Stating that Sri Lankan forces 'liberated the East' not for the benefit of Indian geo-political and economic interests, but to resettle 'all ethnic communities' there, he said that the JVP would not allow separation of the country in the name of devolution proposals and proclaimed that the renewed JVP would become the locomotive of the future governance of Sri Lanka.
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Claymore ambush in Weli Oya kills 2 STF commandos

[TamilNet, Thursday, 01 May 2008, 08:54 GMT]
Sri Lankan military officials said two Special Task Force (STF) commandos deployed in the Sinhala settlement of Dutuwewa in Ma'nalaa'ru (Weli Oya) region were killed in a Claymore attack Thursday around 6:45 a.m. This is the first time the STF has admitted to have lost its men in an ambush attack in the Vanni front after STF units were deployed in the sector bordering Trincomalee and Vavuniyaa districts in the North Central Province for providing security to the Sinhalese settlements.
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