Batticaloa elections: Colombo's rehearsal for paramilitary politics

[TamilNet, Monday, 31 December 2007, 19:55 GMT]
In the backdrop of the Mahinda Rajapaksa Government announcing local government elections in the Batticaloa district, three Tamil paramilitary-cum-political parties, the EPDP, PLOTE, EPRLF (Naba wing) and the yet-to-be-registered TMVP of Pillayan's group revealed that they had reached an agreement to form an electoral alliance after a meeting summoned at the Batticaloa office of the EPDP Saturday. A spokesperson of the paramilitary coalition told media that although the four outfits had agreed on principle, the final decision would be taken after consultations with their respective leaders and key operatives.
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Passport fiasco

[TamilNet, Sunday, 23 December 2007, 11:58 GMT]
While the Sri Lankan High Commissioner for U.K., Ms. Kshenuka Senewiratne, toils hard to extricate the Government of Sri Lanka from the diplomatic bungle it made in issuing a diplomatic passport under false name to fugitive Vinayagamoorthy Muralitharan alias Karuna, Rights organizations accused Karuna of "war crimes," and urged British Government to try him in Britain. Meanwhile, informed sources in Colombo said Canadian Embassy had earlier rejected visa application for "Karuna," before British Embassy was misled by Colombo to issue a visa under the name of "Dushmantha Gunawardene, Director General, Wild Life Conservation."
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UK: LTTE must change its ways, no intervention in Sri Lanka

[TamilNet, Monday, 10 December 2007, 22:10 GMT]
The British High Commissioner to Sri Lanka, Dominick Chilcott, said Monday that President Mahinda Rajapakse must make an offer acceptable to moderate Tamils because the LTTE would not accept a negotiated solution within a united Sri Lanka. Mr. Chilcott accepted, however, that the President had to be able to “sell the solution” to the majority Sinhalese. The international community has no plans to intervene in Sri Lanka to exercise the responsibility to protect, he further said.
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15,000 deprived of livelihood in Paduvaankarai

[TamilNet, Saturday, 08 December 2007, 21:27 GMT]
Half of the affected agriculture-dependent families in Batticaloa district are from Paduvaankarai region, where the major cultivable land of the district, is situated. Forced to flee their paddy fields, standing ripe and ready for harvest, the families who returned under the Government of Sri Lanka's (GoSL) resettlement, could only witness the remains of the properties and livestock that had been looted by the Sri Lankan forces. Although four months have elapsed since their resettlement, the GoSL has not provided any assistance to the farmers to resume paddy cultivation.
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Sri Lanka's War Secretariat?

[TamilNet, Thursday, 22 November 2007, 13:02 GMT]
Sri Lanka's Secretariat for Co-ordinating the Peace Process (SCOPP), in a 2000-word press release issued Thursday, took exceptions to the labelling of SCOPP as "the government’s War Secretariat," by Prof. Uyangoda, and as "Secretariat for Coordinating the War Process" by Sunday Times which highlighted SCOPP's "angrily incessant verbosity," in its story. Head of SCOPP adds, "our counterpart in Kilinochchi had shown itself indeed a War Secretariat, in celebrating the Black Tigers who had attacked the airbase at Anuradhapura," drawing moral equivalence between the 'behavior' of the two Secretatriats as part of SCOPP's rationale for defending Sri Lanka's rights abuses, among other accusations.
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Rights activist questions progress of CoI, IIGEP

[TamilNet, Sunday, 18 November 2007, 13:47 GMT]
The Commission of Inquiry (CoI) and the International Independent Group of Eminent Persons (IIGEP) appointed to by the Government of Sri Lanka in response to calls for international monitoring on human rights have achieved only a limited progress in investigating 16-rights cases identified for investigations, says Bhavani Fonseka, a senior researcher at Center for Policy Alternatives (CPA), and questions "if anything is possible to achieve in a situation where independence of the CoI is questioned, politicization and interference remains, [and] there is lack of progress in witness and victim protection."
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Colombo losing political war- Uyangoda

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 14 November 2007, 16:22 GMT]
In an incisive and pessimistic article in Wednesday's edition in a Colombo daily, Professor Jeyadeva Uyangoda, Head of Department of Political Science and Public Policy, University of Colombo, says, Colombo, with its militaristic approach to finish "LTTE terrorism once and for all," is fast losing the political war, has "heightened alienation of the Tamil citizens from the Sri Lankan state," erased distinction between the State and the regime marking an "authoritarian drift in governance in which liberal democracy is seen as an unaffordable luxury, and even a threat," and self-destructively "mirror-imaging the LTTE particularly in the area of human rights and humanitarian issues."
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"Disappearances and killings will continue" - Fonseka

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 14 November 2007, 03:15 GMT]
Disappearances and killings of will continue as long as ‘anti-terrorist’ operations are continuing, Sri Lanka’s Army commander, Lt. Gen. Sarath Fonseka said this week in a interview to British investigative reporters. Asked about human rights abuses in the newly captured Eastern province, the commander replied: “This area is not a normal area. So people getting killed and some people going missing will happen as far as the anti-terrorist operations are continuing.”
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UK urged to charge Karuna for war crimes

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 06 November 2007, 14:09 GMT]
Karuna, a former Tamil Tiger commander and later the leader of TMVP paramiitary group that has been deployed by the Sri Lankan forces in their war against the Tigers, has been arrested in Britain on suspicion of immigration offences, including traveling on a false passport, British press reports said this week. International human rights groups are now calling on the UK government to investigate Vinayagamoorthi Muraleetharan (Karuna) for war crimes and are assembling evidence to see whether they can trigger a prosecution, reports said. Amid fears by rights groups that Karuna would be deported to Sri Lanka, some press reports said he had applied for asylum in Britain.
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‘Peace needs a paradigm shift in international approaches’

[TamilNet, Monday, 05 November 2007, 00:18 GMT]
"A striking sentiment perceivable on stage and among the audience at the gathering in Olso to pay tribute to Thamilchelvan, was righteous indignation about the lopsided morality of International Community, in not responding effectively to the killing of an important political personality," K. Sivapalan, a senior attorney-at-law from Trincomalee, who attended the gathering in Oslo on Saturday, told TamilNet.
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Peoples of 'historical waters' and Indian security

[TamilNet, Sunday, 04 November 2007, 12:14 GMT]
Due to improved understanding and collaboration between the navies of India and Sri Lanka, and enhanced sea monitoring power, India need not to worry about repercussions of the ongoing war in Sri Lanka, said L. V. Sarath Babu, the Chief Staff Officer, Eastern Command of the Indian Navy to media men at Rameasvaram on Friday. The night of the same day, 97 Tamil Nadu fishermen, were arrested by the Sri Lanka Navy off the waters of Jaffna. This is an illustrative example of the wide gap between the security concerns of the two governments and the aspirations of the peoples they claim to represent.
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Rape by Sri Lankan troops resurfaces – in Haiti

[TamilNet, Sunday, 04 November 2007, 07:31 GMT]
The United Nations has asked Sri Lanka to prosecute ‘to the fullest extent of the law’ 108 Sri Lankan soldiers with the UN peacekeeping mission in Haiti for sexual exploitation and sexual abuse of minors, including prostitution, the Sunday Times reported. The number is one of the biggest single withdrawal of soldiers from a UN peacekeeping mission. During the conflict numerous local and international NGOs protested both frequent rapes by security forces and the climate of impunity in which they occur.
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APRC on hiatus

[TamilNet, Saturday, 27 October 2007, 12:56 GMT]
Despite claims by Colombo media in early August that the All Party Representative Committee (APRC) formed by Sri Lanka's President Rajapakse has met with "sudden death," amid opposition from SLFP, MEP and the JHU to the "unit of devolution" ahead of the Committee report deadline of 15 August, the APRC discussions were resurrected; the latest on the resilient APRC is that after the 51st sitting on the 23rd October, the APRC is taking a 2 month recess, reports from Colombo said. The current status: APRC is "exploring the possibility of reaching consensus among the political parties on power sharing."
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Attack demonstrates determination, bravery, precision- Intel Expert

[TamilNet, Friday, 26 October 2007, 02:36 GMT]
While former head of India's external intelligence agency, B. Raman, described the Anuradhapura Sri Lanka Air Force (SLAF) Camp attack by the Liberation Tigers as an "act of unbelievable determination, bravery and precision," Sri Lanka's Daily Mirror, in the Friday edition, braved the threat to the media from Minister Anura Priyadarshana Yapa to desist from glorifying the Tigers, disclosed the battle scenario in detail, surmised that "the base had no contingency plan," and added that "the attack made mockery of Sri Lanka Government's propaganda war."
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Tributes to Black Tigers draw parallels between Anuradhapura mission and IPKF times

[TamilNet, Thursday, 25 October 2007, 22:58 GMT]
While bidding farewell to the 21 Black Tigers before their departure for Anuradhapura mission, the Liberation Tigers of Tamileelam (LTTE) leader V. Pirapaharan told them that they will remain in his heart as guiding spirits providing willpower and moral strength in steering the current struggle for liberation. He compared their sacrifices to those of Kumarapppa, Pulendran and Thileepan, which inspired him personally in his determination to face the Indian forces successfully two decades ago, said Kalaikkoan, an instructor of Lt. Col. Rayan Academy for Tiger special forces, addressing a memorial event held at Puthukkudiyiruppu Thursday.
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UNP drops federalism

[TamilNet, Monday, 01 October 2007, 11:15 GMT]
The decision by Sri Lanka’s main opposition United National Party (UNP) to ditch the federal constitutional model as a solution to the island’s protracted ethnic conflict makes it the last of the major southern parties to embrace Sinhala nationalism again. In doing so, the former ‘pro-peace’ party may finally have resolved its ethnic dilemma.
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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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LTTE's patience intentional - Thamilchelvan

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 19 September 2007, 08:18 GMT]
"Without caring for International policies and passive requests, the Government of Sri Lanka is continuing its genocidal war against the Tamil people. The concerns raised by the International Community have failed to make any dent on the ethnic cleansing by Colombo government which has proved itself a terrorist-state. Some International governments, without understanding realities, give aid to the deceitful purposes of the Sinhala government, which will only escalate the island's ethnic conflict to hitherto unseen heights," said LTTE's Political Head S.P. Thamilchelvan in an exclusive interview to TamilNet on Wednesday.
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Sign of the times in Tamil Nadu

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 18 September 2007, 00:40 GMT]
Veteran Tamil Nadu activist Pazha Nedumaran’s attempted crossing of the Palk Straits in a bid to deliver emergency relief to Sri Lanka’s Tamils was thwarted last week when he and hundreds of volunteers were arrested. Whilst the attempted crossing and its ‘failure’ has been dismissed, especially in Sri Lanka’s south, as a stunt by mavericks on the fringe of Tamil Nadu’s politics, the event has both highlighted and boosted resurgent support in the south Indian state for the Sri Lankan Tamils’ cause.
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Tamil Left in Sri Lanka revisited

[TamilNet, Thursday, 13 September 2007, 02:12 GMT]
"The majoritarian nationalists have reframed the national question as a ‘terrorist problem’ and displaced it from the historical and political domain to which it belongs. They have couched their call for a military solution in a discourse of ‘sovereignty and territorial integrity’ of the majoritarian unitary state and linked it to the so called global war on terror at the same time. Now it is official that the main problem is ‘terrorism’ which has to be defeated before any ‘political solution’ can be found. The real meaning of this position is that the military solution is the political solution," writes Professor N. Shanmugaratnam, in his foreword to Ravi Vaitheespara's book on Tamil Left.
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Diaspora health meet highlights 'Village University'

[TamilNet, Thursday, 06 September 2007, 05:12 GMT]
Dr Mads Gilbert, a Professor of Emergency Medicine at University of Tromsø in Norway and a co-author of the book titled 'Save Lives, Save Limbs', gave a lecture on the concept of 'Village University', last Saturday when Tamil Diaspora health workers in Europe gathered in the Norwegian city of Bergen for a 2-day conference. The anesthesiologist with experience in training health care workers in many conflict areas of the global South, outrightly criticized the North centric approach to health in conflict areas. His impressive publication on alternatives awaits Tamil translation.
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Hope amid tragedy

[TamilNet, Saturday, 01 September 2007, 19:40 GMT]
Antony, a six year old boy lost his leg, his 4-year old brother Reginathan was killed, his mother and 6-month old brother were injured, and his father Jegan lost his leg during 02 January attack by Kfir fast attack aircrafts of the Sri Lanka Air Force (SLAF) at the coastal hamlet of Padakuththu’rai in Iluppaikadavai, Mannar town. Jegan lost four of his siblings. Amidst this tragedy, Antony showed remarkable resilience and a unique enthusiasm for his school work when TamilNet visited the family for an interview this week.
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Western media ignores Sri Lanka State Terror- Aussie doctor

[TamilNet, Saturday, 25 August 2007, 13:35 GMT]
Queensland Pediatrician and Director of Townsville Hospital's Neonatal Unit, Dr John Whitehall, talking with Richard Fidler of ABC radio in the program "Conversation hour" early this week, said that in Tamil eelam there "is tremendous commitment from a population of only three million people [for separation]. You can't get 17000 people to take up arms and fight to death unless their hearts are in their cause," and added that "What I have come to be aware [is] you can't understand the situation in Colombo if you only focus on the terror which is coming from one side, and you don't mention the state terror, the terror inflicted by Colombo state."
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Australia terror prosecution debacle

[TamilNet, Saturday, 25 August 2007, 00:04 GMT]
In a court decision that is proving to be a major embarrassment for the Australian government, Justice Jeffrey Spender ruled in Brisbane Tuesday that Immigration Minister Kevin Andrews used the wrong criteria ('Jurisdictional Error') when he revoked Dr Haneef's visa. Dr. Haneef was charged on 14 July with providing "reckless support to terrorism" associated with the bombing in Glasgow and London. Several key Australian politicians called for the resignation of the Minister.
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APRC is dead, says UNP

[TamilNet, Thursday, 16 August 2007, 00:43 GMT]
After the Tuesday meeting of the All Party Representative Committee (APRC) on Constitutional Reforms was abruptly halted and adjourned indefinitely due to demands from Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) and Mahajana Eksath Peramuna (MEP) members, and failed to "finalise a draft report by today to keep to a deadline set by the United National Party UNP," the opposition UNP spokesperson said the "APRC process is dead in the water," the Morning Leader reported in the Wednesday edition.
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Tamil film-styled gang fight in Oslo

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 14 August 2007, 02:25 GMT]
At least two persons were seriously injured, one of them struggling for life, as a result of a gang fight that took place in Kalbakken, a suburb of Norway's capital Oslo, on Sunday. Confrontation between local Tamil youth and a few who intruded into Norway in recent months is said to have caused the formation of gangs that fought to settle scores, using handguns and Samurai swords.
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'Para Demala': a reader's response

[TamilNet, Sunday, 12 August 2007, 01:58 GMT]
A Sinhala reader of TamilNet has come out with the following note on our news feature 'Para Demala', dated 06 August 2007. According to him, the word 'para' is the worst kind of derogatory word in Sinhala, but is used in the sense to mean alien or foreign. It is not connected to the Pa'raiyar community. He further adds that even Sinhala-Buddhist reformers of the calibre of Anagarika Dharmapala had used the phrase 'Para Demala' in a negative sense to mean low-grade aliens.
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Mullaiththeevu fishing woes

[TamilNet, Saturday, 11 August 2007, 05:13 GMT]
Thanapalasingham Suman, 22 and his brother Manoharan, 27, were wounded in A'lampil seas in Mullaiththeevu on 28 July this year when SLN Dvora gunboats fired at their fishing boat. The brothers are currently recovering at the Mullaiththeevu District hospital. In an interview with TamilNet this week, Suman said many fishermen in his area have to risk their lives against frequent attacks by the Sri Lanka Navy (SLN) to feed their family, and often to support ageing parents.
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"Para Demala"

[TamilNet, Monday, 06 August 2007, 14:22 GMT]
'Para Demala' might have offended the Ceylon Workers Congress (CWC), but "Pa'raiyar, a prestigious ancestors of the Tamil social formation, would definitely laugh at Basil Rajapaksa for his stupid choice of words," Tamil parliamentarian P. Ariyanenthiran told media Monday. The resignation of five ministers of the CWC from the ruling Rajapaksa government Thursday was triggered by a clash with Mr. Basil Rajapaksa, SL president's brother and presidential advisor, who, in the height of the argument, reportedly chose to call a senior CWC leader as 'Para Demala,' (the Tamil of the drummer-caste), which the Sinhalese think is a derogatory way of calling a Tamil.
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A'lampil student victim 'wished he was dead'

[TamilNet, Thursday, 02 August 2007, 01:25 GMT]
Premathas Premkumar, 14, a student who lost both legs in the Sri Lanka Air Force (SLAF) bombing on the fishing hamlet in A'ampil July 11, in an interview to Tamilnet Monday, said that attending school has become impossible and added, "I regret I had not been killed in the attack, as I would not have been a burden to my family which is already poor."
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Right to Protect

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 01 August 2007, 01:01 GMT]
Gareth Evans, President, International Crisis Group, in the eighth Neelan Tiruchelvam Memorial Lecture at International Centre for Ethnic Studies (ICES) , Colombo, 29 July said "The State has a primary responsibility to protect the individuals within it. Where the state fails in that responsibility, through either incapacity or ill-will, a secondary responsibility to protect falls on the wider international community. That, in a nutshell, is the core of the responsibility to protect (R2P) idea" and that "Sri Lanka is anything but an R2P."
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Black July emblematic of Sinhala rule - paper

[TamilNet, Monday, 23 July 2007, 05:38 GMT]
In nearly a quarter century of conflict since the state-sponsored anti-Tamil riots of July 1983, despite the tens of thousands of lives that have been lost in the conflict, “there has not been an iota of change in the Sinhala leadership’s thinking – nor, for that matter, in the sentiments of the international community [on the ethnic question],” the Tamil Guardian newspaper argued in its editorial this week. Comparing the regimes of Presidents Junius Jayawardene, Chandrika Kumaratunga and Mahinda Rajapakse, the paper contends: “Black July is not just a historical event. Rather, it is an emblematic act of Sinhala rule."
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Australia's Terror Prosecutions

[TamilNet, Saturday, 21 July 2007, 20:14 GMT]
While Australian media highlighted that recent prosecutions by Australia's law enforcement gave the "appearance of a political imperative to obtain convictions and an excessive zeal for using harsh anti-terror laws," federal Attorney-General Philip Ruddock, suprised by the Melbourne court's decision to bail two Tamil men charged with supplying funds to Sri Lanka's Tamil Tigers, appeared to shift the blame towards the Courts saying, "bail laws for people charged with terrorism offences could be reviewed if there is evidence courts are misinterpreting them,"
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Family's hopes shattered, says father of bomb victim

[TamilNet, Friday, 13 July 2007, 10:59 GMT]
Aloysius Premathas 39, was eating inside his hut when a Sri Lanka Air Force (SLAF) Kfir fighter jet bombed his fishing hamlet near the Church of Vea'laangka'n'ni in A'lampil Wednesday evening, severing one leg of his 15-year eldest son, 100 meters away from his hut. Fishermen sorting fish on the shore scattered in panic as wounded Premkumar lay on the shore. The tragedy of Aloysius's life began with the Sri Lanka Army's (SLA's) 1990 offensive on Mayiliddi in Valigaamam west where his ancestors had been living as wealthy fisher folk.
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Anti-terror Laws

[TamilNet, Thursday, 12 July 2007, 00:28 GMT]
Visuvanathan Rudrakumaran, legal advisor and member of the negotiating team for the Liberation Tigers in Geneva, in a recent review of the "material support" provisions in US laws related to designated "terrorist" organizations, says that although the plaintiffs cannot be criminally prosecuted for providing “training,” “services,” or “expert advice or assistance from specialized knowledge” under the “material support” provision in the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act (IRTPA) of December 2004, they can be prosecuted under a Presidential Executive Order (EO 13224).
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Japan's aid not conducive to peace in Sri Lanka - Sampanthan

[TamilNet, Monday, 02 July 2007, 19:38 GMT]
R. Sampanthan, parliamentary group leader of the Tamil National Alliance (TNA), has said that the decision by Sri Lanka's major donor country Japan, to continue economic aid to Sri Lanka, will soften the International pressure on the SL government to seek a political solution and strengthen Colombo to pursue the military option. Pointing out Sri Lanka President's categorical statement that there would be no change in his policy on a "unitary structure of a government" with the "district as the unit of devolution," Mr. Sampanthan dismissed the efforts of All Party Representatives Committee (APRC) as "no more than a mere pretense" to show some action is being taken towards political solution.
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Diaspora youth speakout

[TamilNet, Saturday, 16 June 2007, 23:21 GMT]
A new brand of politically active Canadian Tamil youths are seeking innovative new outlets to express their political message, and to capture the attention of local media. Social networking sites including YouTube, and Facebook have become key electronic arsenal youths have marshalled to promote political themes and to invite other youths to join action groups. Groups employ well-organized public relations efforts including marathon-walks through cities to attract attention of the local media, law enforcement authorities and politicians.
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Sri Lanka abuses slammed at EU hearing

[TamilNet, Friday, 08 June 2007, 01:10 GMT]
The Sri Lankan government came under severe criticism for human rights and humanitarian abuses at a public hearing in Brussels of the European Parliamentary Development Committee Wednesday. The Tamil Tigers were also criticized. Whilst representatives of the European Commission and Council of External Affairs slammed the lack of respect for international humanitarian laws in Sri Lanka, NGOs, including Human Rights Watch (HRW) and aid agency Action Contre la Faim (ACF) decried the continuing abuses of human rights.
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President’s paradoxes

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 06 June 2007, 00:46 GMT]
In an extensive interview to Al Jazeera television last week, Sri Lanka’s President Mahinda Rajapakse set out his government’s policy on the island’s protracted conflict. In doing so he put forward a number of contradictory assertions and policies, which boiled down to a single overriding theme: military defeat of the Tamil Tigers.
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Judicial Corruption

[TamilNet, Sunday, 03 June 2007, 14:42 GMT]
Transparency International (TI), a global civil society organisation that addresses corruption, Head Quartered in Germany, said in its 2007 report on Sri Lanka's judicial system, that "corruption is an outcome of Sri Lanka's cowed judiciary," and that situation has worsened after the appointment of Sarath N Silva as the Chief Justice "over protests from national and international judiciary bodies, and attempts by two successive parliaments to impeach him for abuse of power and corruption."
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Sloganeering Terror, Strategizing War

[TamilNet, Monday, 28 May 2007, 01:05 GMT]
While US's “War on Terror” after the events of 9/11 has been criticized by leading US foreign policy advocates as having a "pernicious impact on American democracy, on America’s psyche and on U.S. standing in the world," autocratic leaders of some faltering states of the third world, including Sri Lanka, have been making concerted efforts to capitalize on this Bush doctrine by defining legitimate local nationalist struggles as phenomena of terrorism.
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Tiger planes hit Sri Lanka economy

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 02 May 2007, 18:12 GMT]
Whilst Sri Lanka’s government has brushed aside the threat posed by the Liberation Tigers’ air attacks, the tourist industry is bracing for further setbacks as airlines pull out and other countries warn citizens to stay away. In addition to tourist arrivals falling further, Colombo’s potential as a passenger transit hub was been stymied, Hindustan Times reported. Defence spending is expected to soar as Colombo defends against the LTTE’s aircraft. Even before the recent raids, ratings agency Fitch had given Sri Lanka a rating of BB- with a negative outlook as the domestic security situation posed risks to economic stability and growth.
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Tea, Bhagavad-Gita and vadai

[TamilNet, Friday, 30 March 2007, 10:24 GMT]
Dr. Kumar Rupesinghe, the head of the Foundation for Peaceful Coexistence, launched his website (www.kumarrupesinghe.org) Friday with an event at Barefoot Gallery. In a four page card sent as invitations to guests, Dr. Rupesinghe made a call for coexistence amongst Sri Lankans, setting out brief texts describing notions such as ‘Country’, ‘Patriot’, ‘Buddhism’ and ‘Tamils’. In the section on Tamils (‘Demala’) he urged Sinhalese to coexist with Tamils, reminding the former of the latter’s valued qualities, including their lovable food.
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Engineered Catastrophe

[TamilNet, Sunday, 25 March 2007, 11:52 GMT]
Batticaloa has turned into an area of humanitarian disaster, and a battle ground for refugee figures, as more than 100,000 residents of Paduvankarai districts were forced to flee to GoSL controlled regions by the shelling of Sri Lankan Armed Forces inside LTTE controlled areas during the first two weeks of March. The changing IDP numbers have swelled to 165,485. While UN appealed for "vital funds to boost its operations in eastern Sri Lanka" and leftist parties accused the Government of engineering "demographic change," Sri Lanka Government spokesperson K. Rambukwella dismissed the severity saying only 52,000 are displaced, contradicting his own administration's official figures.
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Reckless Justice

[TamilNet, Thursday, 22 March 2007, 02:23 GMT]
Discharge papers to release Mawbima journalist, Munusamy Parameswary, 25, who was arrested on 22nd November under Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA), and held for nearly four months, on suspicion of "helping the LTTE and a suspected suicide bomber," were sent Wednesday morning, by Harshika De Silva, State Counsel representing the Attorney General (AG), to Colombo chief Magistrate Court. Parameshwari was released Thursday at 10:00 a.m..
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Offensive aftermath

[TamilNet, Sunday, 25 February 2007, 01:01 GMT]
More than 200 civilians were killed and hundreds of others injured in the five-month long Sri Lanka military offensive carried out in sea, air and land on Vaharai and adjoining coastal hamlets. Nearly 40,000 IDPs stay in 49 temporary shelters and with friends and relatives elsewhere in the military controlled part of Batticaloa district. The Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) from Vaharai and neighboring Trincomalee district express resentment over the inequity in reimbursing relief and compensation by Sri Lanka Government authorities.
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Ad Hominem

[TamilNet, Monday, 19 February 2007, 00:28 GMT]
Allan Rock, Special Representative for United Nations Committee on Children and Armed Conflict, came under scathing personal attack in Sri Lanka Government controlled media for his report implicating Colombo for complicity in child recruitment. Ad hominem, a fundamental fallacy much detested in the field of rhetoric, and legal and scientific debate, has become a common tool in Sri Lanka Government's arsenal in confronting bad publicity in matters that have drawn negative international attention.
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Education in peril

[TamilNet, Sunday, 18 February 2007, 00:33 GMT]
More than 7% of school-aged children in Jaffna, amounting to 10201 students, dropped out of schools in 2006, most of the dropouts occurring following the fresh outbreak of violence from 11 August 2006, say education officials in Jaffna. The schools in the district that boasted highest literacy rates 3 decades ago, and produced nearly 40% of the medical and engineering freshmen, now are gripped with fear of student abductions, and with high school education crippled with lack of school supplies and scarcity of books.
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Unfolding misery

[TamilNet, Monday, 15 January 2007, 09:50 GMT]
More than 72,000 Tamil civilians internally displaced due to the military confrontations in the East, residing in 50 temporary camps in Batticaloa district's LTTE and GoSL controlled areas, are facing serious shortage of food, accommodation, drinking water, sanitation and toilet facilities, according to Batticaloa District Secretariat. Muttur east clashes, followed by battle for Sampoor, and now Vaharai clashes intensifying, the increasing numbers of Internally Displaced (IDPs) in Batticaloa face a dismal future.
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Vaharai tragedy

[TamilNet, Thursday, 11 January 2007, 02:05 GMT]
Following Sri Lanka's Military Commander Lt.Gen Sarath Fonseka's assertion that Sri Lankan Forces will evict Liberation Tigers from the East withn the next two months, Sri Lanka Army (SLA) has intensified shelling and artillery attacks into Vaharai.
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Battle for Vaharai

[TamilNet, Monday, 01 January 2007, 11:35 GMT]
Vaharai, a large backwater on Sri Lanka’s east coast, is an area with large fertile fields, lagoons and virgin forests in the northern part of the Batticaloa district. More than 15,000 residents and IDPs are now trapped in Vaharai as the Sri Lanka Army (SLA) conducts its brutal campaign to evict Tamils from the region, closing A-15 the main access road to the town, and imposing economic embargo, while Sri Lanka Air Force (SLAF) kfirs fly bombing raids terrorizing the civilians to flee. "They [LTTE] won't be able to keep the civilians for long. Food and medicine is in short supply," Brigadier Prasad Samarasinghe, the top military spokesman, told Reuters in a interview Friday.
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