SLA steps up surveillance in A'pura Tamil suburb

[TamilNet, Thursday, 08 November 2007, 20:09 GMT]
The Sri Lanka Army (SLA) and Police have been frequently conducting cordon and search operation at Neeraaviyadi, a Tamil suburb located 6 km away from Anuradhapura military air base. The surveillance has been stepped up since the assumption of Major General Sarath Karunaratne as the Overall Commander of Anuradhapura district following the recent aerial and land attack on the Anuradhapura military air base by the Liberation Tigers of Tamileelam (LTTE).
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SLA deployed to beef up security around Yala sanctuary

[TamilNet, Thursday, 08 November 2007, 18:51 GMT]
More than two thousand soldiers of the Sri Lanka Army (SLA) have been deployed to conduct search operation in the Yala national sanctuary since the recovery of dead bodies of Sinhalese villagers. Sri Lanka Army (SLA) camps and eight police sentries have been set up in villages in Tihssamaharama, around the sanctuary.
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Thissamaharama Police officer orders mob attack on journalists

[TamilNet, Thursday, 08 November 2007, 11:11 GMT]
Officer in Charge (OIC) of Thissemaharama Police Thursday morning ordered a mob to attack two journalists working for Maharaja Television Network, who went ahead with filming dead bodies of the Sinhalese cattle herders recovered in Yala sanctuary area, ignoring the warning of the OIC not to film the dead bodies. The journalists were arguing that they were performing their duty when the OIC gave instructions to the mob to attack them.
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Two more bodies recovered in Thissamaharama

[TamilNet, Thursday, 08 November 2007, 10:05 GMT]
Thissemaharama Police has recovered two more dead bodies of Sinhalese cattle herders with cut injuries at Bambarawa in Yala sanctuary in southern Sri Lanka Wednesday night. Earlier on Monday, the police recovered 3 bodies at the same location with cut injuries. Thissemaharama division is situated in the constituency of the Sri Lankan president Mahinda Rajapaksa.
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Rajapaksa claims victory in isolating Tigers Internationally

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 07 November 2007, 14:33 GMT]
Claiming that Sri Lanka has managed to curb overseas operations of the Liberation Tigers of Tamileelam (LTTE) with the assistance of many countries, the Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa, presenting the 2008 Budget in the Sri Lankan parliament Wednesday, vowed to "completely eradicate terrorism," if an environment in which a "political solution upholding human rights" in the interest of those who are "still in the grips of terrorists" is to be created. This could not be achieved by taking a divided approach by defaming each other [in the south], by neglecting the needs of the security forces or by ignoring their advise, Mr. Mahinda Rajapaksa told the Parliament.
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Police recover 3 civilian dead bodies in Yala

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 06 November 2007, 09:40 GMT]
Thissemaharama Police has recovered three dead bodies of Sinhalese cattle herders with cut injuries at Bambarawa in Yala sanctuary in southern Sri Lanka Monday evening. Thissemaharama division is situated in the constituency of the Sri Lankan president Mahinda Rajapaksa.
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US Senator expresses concern of Sri Lanka's rights violations

[TamilNet, Saturday, 03 November 2007, 13:51 GMT]
Advocating for "international human rights field presence" in Sri Lanka, and asserting "there is no military solution to Sri Lankan conflict," the Democratic Senator from Vermont and Chairman of Senate Judiciary Committee, Sen. Patrick Leahy, in a statement issued at the Senate sessions on 2nd November said: " We have been increasingly concerned with reports of abuses by Sri Lankan government forces - not from the LTTE or their supporters as some have inaccurately claimed, but from the United Nations, the Department of State, and international human rights organizations."
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Editorial blasts CID's political subservience

[TamilNet, Sunday, 28 October 2007, 12:10 GMT]
The editorial of this weekend's Sunday Leader launched a scathing attack on the Sri Lanka's Criminal Investigation Division (CID) as having been reduced to a "mere plaything of the Rajapakse Brothers and hangers-on such as [Minister] Wijeratne, poodles to do their beck and call," and called Mr. Wijeratene a "pathetically bad liar" who will soon be exposed as "a fraud, a purloiner of the public purse, and a perjurer," after the CID arrested Tamil journalist Wamanan on a hearsay charge of extortion, following Wamanan's article exposing Mr. Wijeratne of misappropriating government funds.
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Sri Lanka parades fallen Tigers’ naked bodies

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 23 October 2007, 16:10 GMT]
Sri Lanka armed forces Tuesday paraded the naked bodies of Tamil Tiger commandos killed during their devastating attack on a key northern airbase in the early hours Monday, agency reports said. Amid media coverage of the grisly scenes, the military Wednesday claimed the LTTE troopers’ bodies were stripped in order to search for “hidden suicide devices.” The Army claimed the bodies were wrapped in polythene, but photographs of the subsequent procession show the naked bodies being exposed for the public to view. The military also said Wednesday it has now buried the LTTE troopers’ bodies.
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US expresses concern over rights abuses in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Friday, 05 October 2007, 23:08 GMT]
U.S. Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs, R. Nicholas Burns, expressed "serious concern over credible reports of severe human rights abuses in Jaffna...," during a meeting with Sri Lanka's foreign minister Bogollagama in Washington D.C. Thursday, a press release issued by the State Department said.
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U.S. expresses rights concern, urges progress on power-sharing proposal

[TamilNet, Friday, 05 October 2007, 17:32 GMT]
U.S. Under Secretary of State Nicholas Burns has expressed serious concern over credible reports of continued severe human rights abuses in Jaffna and other parts of Sri Lanka and ongoing threats to freedom of the press when he met Sri Lankan Foreign Minister Rohitha Bogollagama in Washington, D.C., on Thursday, according to a media note released by the U.S. Department of State.
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International Chakkadaththaar

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 02 October 2007, 13:38 GMT]
The main reason why Sri Lanka’s ethnic conflict couldn’t be resolved all these decades was that it was approached as a terrorist issue. The approach, which served the convenience and deceit of the Sinhala politicians, was endorsed by the world system, because everybody had skeletons in their cupboards. It was a general debility of international polity and political ideologies to resolve situations similar to that of Sri Lanka. As a result, the mainstream international system has led the world into an Age of Paranoia. The bigger the State, the bigger is the paranoia, writes Opinion Columnist Ampalam.
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New Sinhala colony in Raalku'li, villagers complain

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 26 September 2007, 11:07 GMT]
Resettled Tamil families in Raalku'li, a traditional Tamil village in Moothoor division in Trincomalee district, expressed fear that the Sri Lanka government is attempting to settle Sinhala families in their village. The fear follows the laying foundation stone for about 138 houses under a resettlement project in the village with the funding of a Buddhist Organization located in Colombo.
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Muslims allege Sinhala colonization in Pulmoddai

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 25 September 2007, 06:09 GMT]
Muslim residents in Pulmoddai village have made representations to their leaders that the Sri Lanka government is taking steps to acquire several acres of their traditional lands to colonise Sinhalese under the pretext of establishing an industrial estate with the assistance of the Mineral Sands Corporation, civil society sources in Trincomalee said.
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“Avoid unitary, avoid states” - United States ambassador

[TamilNet, Saturday, 22 September 2007, 16:10 GMT]
Addressing a seminar on "Sri Lanka: the Way Forward," in Colombo on Friday, organized by Fullbright Association, the U.S. Ambassador for Sri Lanka, Robert Blake, categorically stated that Sri Lanka's conflict cannot be won by military means. He said whatever the Sri Lankan government achieved in terms of military victories in the last several months, were merely "tactical" successes. The Ambassador who didn't want to mince words, cautioned the Colombo government against possible failures, hoped on All Party Representative Committee (APRC) and harped on development especially in the East, but dodged words when it came to the political model for resolving Sri Lanka's ethnic crisis.
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World must rein in Sri Lankan state – TNA

[TamilNet, Saturday, 22 September 2007, 11:13 GMT]
Protesting that the Sri Lankan government had discarded negotiating a settlement to the island’s ethnic conflict, the Tamil National Alliance (TNA)urged the international community to take a principled stand on the Tamil people’s right to self determination. Outlining the humanitarian and human rights crisis that has emerged in the wake of Colombo’s military project, the TNA also argued: “the Sri Lankan State will not conform to international norms or standards. It is only by the International Community … taking meaningful steps, can the Sri Lankan State be made to realize that it cannot continue with the present disastrous trend.”
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TNA urges inquiry into East killings

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 19 September 2007, 15:05 GMT]
The Tamil National Alliance (TNA) Parliamentary Group leader R. Sampanthan told the Sri Lanka Parliament Tuesday, the Government of Sri Lanka should appoint a commission, consisting retired judges, to investigate the killings of the Tamil civilians during the recent military offensives in the East, parliamentary sources said. He suggested that a Muslim should lead the commission with members appointed from three communities, Tamil, Muslim and Sinhalese.
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Pirapaharan pays homage to Thileepan on 20th anniversary

[TamilNet, Saturday, 15 September 2007, 13:11 GMT]
Leader of Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, Velupillai Pirapaharan, paid homage to Lt. Col. Thileepan (Rasiah Parthipan), at an undisclosed location in Vanni Saturday. Thileepan, LTTE's political wing leader for the Jaffna district, who fasted unto death in a twelve days' campaign putting forward five demands to the Indian government to meet the aspirations of the Tamil people soon after the signing of the Indo-Sri Lankan agreement in 1987.
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SLA removes curfew for Nalloor Ther festival

[TamilNet, Sunday, 09 September 2007, 18:44 GMT]
Several thousands devotees converged Sunday at the premises of the historic Nalloor Kandaswamy Temple in Jaffna to attend the Ther festival to be held Monday, following the announcement by the Sri Lanka Military head quarters in Palaaly that the curfew will be lifted Sunday and Monday nights, Temple officials said.
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Colombo aims to carve out Sinhala district between North and East - Sampanthan

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 05 September 2007, 19:46 GMT]
The Government of Sri Lanka is giving in for the demands of the extreme nationalist Jathika Hela Urumaya (JHU), with its plans afoot to carve out a Sinhala district between Trincomalee district in the Eastern Province and Mullaiththeevu in the Northern Province, aiming to split the geographical contiguity of the Tamil homeland, charged R. Sampanthan, the senior Tamil parliamentarian and the parliamentary group leader of the Tamil National Alliance (TNA), addressing the Sri Lankan parliament Wednesday. The attempt to create a Sinhala district would spoil the chances for a negotiated settlement, Mr. Sampanthan further warned.
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