Tamil people subjected to Genocide - TNA

[TamilNet, Sunday, 12 April 2009, 07:18 GMT]
The Tamil National Alliance (TNA) in an urgent statement issued on Sunday pointed out the dramatic rise in Tamil civilian casualties over the last two weeks and said over 4,100 Tamil civilians have been killed and over 8,800 gravely injured within the four months of this year. The Foreign Affairs Committee of the TNA, in the statement said that 707 Tamil civilians have been killed within the last 9 days alone and over 1,000 gravely injured. Sri Lankan State's armed forces were deliberately targeting Tamil civilians and that the Tamil people in the island of Sri Lanka are clearly being subjected to Genocide, the TNA said. It urged the International Community to compel the Sri Lankan Government to stop all military operations immediately and to bring about an immediate ceasefire between the Sri Lankan State and the LTTE.
Full story >>

Tamil woman abducted in Wattala

[TamilNet, Sunday, 05 April 2009, 14:49 GMT]
A 26 year-old married Tamil woman was abducted Thursday afternoon in Mabola area, Wattala in Colombo district by a group of unidentified men who came in a three-wheeler while she was having a conversation with her co-employees at a bus halt, according to the complaint lodged by her husband S.Thevamanoharan with the Wattala police on Friday.
Full story >>

Muslim youth abducted in Colombo

[TamilNet, Saturday, 04 April 2009, 09:50 GMT]
A 27 year-old Muslim youth, a three-wheeler driver by profession, was abducted in Colombo Thursday morning by a group of men who followed his three-wheeler in a white van, according to the complaint lodged by his pregnant wife with the police and human rights groups in Colombo. One of the abductors had accomapnied the Muslim youth in the three-wheeler when the others in the white van abducted him.
Full story >>

42 civilians gone missing in Wellaave’li – PS president

[TamilNet, Friday, 03 April 2009, 10:09 GMT]
Wellaave’li Predesha Sabah (PS) President V. R. Mahenthiran said in the Batticaloa District Development and Coordinating Meeting, that 42 civilians had gone missing in Wellaave’li police division, held in Batticaloa District Secretariat 30 March, sources in Batticaloa said. Many civilians had gone missing abducted by unidentified armed men in Paduvvankarai area in the past few months and the complaints made by their relatives in the respective police stations have not brought forth any constructive results, he further said.
Full story >>

BDJU condemns attack on Muslim Tamil editor in Batticaloa

[TamilNet, Friday, 03 April 2009, 09:36 GMT]
“Killings and abductions of media men and threats to their lives which have become daily events in the country have now reached Kaaththaankudi too,” the statement released by Batticaloa District Journalists Union (BDJU) said. The Union staged a silent protest demonstration Thursday in Kaaththaankudi condemning the attack on M. I. Rahamthulla, a Muslim Tamil editor of the Tamil weekly ‘Vaara Uraikal’ Wednesday midnight in his house on Dean Veethi in Kaaththaankudi in Batticaloa district.
Full story >>

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."
Full story >>

More than 1,200 HR violations in Jaffna peninsula in 2008 – HRC report

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 24 March 2009, 16:04 GMT]
More than 1,200 human rights violations including extra judiciary killings, abductions, forced disappearances, death threats, torture and harassment by Sri Lanka armed forces and paramilitary men have been registered with Jaffna Human Rights Commission (HRC) office in the year 2008 alone, according to the HRC report to Colombo HRC Head Office. SLA soldiers and policemen have been directly accused in around 65 complaints made to HRC Jaffna. The above complaints have been made despite threats not to report these instances to HRC. Meanwhile, a four-member team of key HRC officials is presently in Jaffna to instruct SLA officials on matters related to human rights.
Full story >>

Trinco Varsha killing; Tamil paramilitary groups blame each other

[TamilNet, Saturday, 21 March 2009, 17:08 GMT]
Two paramilitary groups, Tamil Makal Viduthalai Pulikal (TMVP) led by Chief Minister Sivanesathurai Chandrakanthan alias Pillaiyan and other by Karuna Amman alias Vinayagamoorthy Muralitharan, who resigned from the TMVP and joined the ruling Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP), are blaming each other for the abduction and killing of six-year-old girl student, Varsha Jude Reggie, according to Colombo media reports.
Full story >>

Tigers seize weapons from SLFP Karuna camp in Batticaloa

[TamilNet, Friday, 20 March 2009, 14:14 GMT]
An armed paramilitary person was killed and two T-56 assault rifles were seized Thursday night around 11:00 p.m. when an ambush team of the Liberation Tigers of Tamileelam (LTTE) carried out a surprise attac on a building at Ku'laththumadu in Vaakaneari in Vaazhaichcheani, according to a news release by the LTTE. The building, used as an office of the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) was a minor camp of Karuna group, the Tigers said. Dayamohan, the Batticaloa district political head of the LTTE told TamilNet last week that Karuna group had stepped up intimidations against the civilians in Batticaloa and Ampaa'rai districts in recent times.
Full story >>

Swiss embassy First Secretary visits Jaffna

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 17 March 2009, 16:04 GMT]
First Secretary of the Swiss Embassy in Sri Lanka, Fiona Corrigan, arrived Sunday on a two day visit to Jaffna to participate in events related to the projects of the Swiss Development Corporation (SDC) in Jaffna peninsula, sources in Jaffna said. The delay by the Defence Ministry in handling the Ambassador’s request for permission to visit Jaffna was said to be reason why the Ambassador was unable to attend the events, the sources said. The First Secretary will be visiting the various projects the Swiss Development Corporation in the peninsula, and is expected to stay in Jaffna until Tuesday.
Full story >>

Tamil family man abducted in Batticaloa

[TamilNet, Saturday, 07 March 2009, 17:07 GMT]
Unidentified gunmen in a white van forcibly abducted Saturday around 12:30 p.m a Tamil family man who was riding on his bicycle along Ka'n'nangkudaa Veethi in Koththiyaapulam area in Vavu’natheevu police division in Batticaloa district, according to a complaint lodged with Vavu’natheevu police.
Full story >>

No democracy in Sri Lanka – TNA parliamentarian

[TamilNet, Thursday, 05 March 2009, 15:06 GMT]
“Abductions and other humanitarian violations in Colombo, the North and the East are escalating at an alarming rate which indicates that Sri Lanka is not a democratic country,” TNA member for Batticaloa district, Ms. K. Thangkeswari said speaking on the motion to extend the state of emergency for another month in Sri Lanka parliament, Wednesday. Another TNA MP, Sivanathan Kishore asked: “How can the International Community believe Sri Lanka government’s version of what is happening in Vanni is true when it has effectively expelled the international human organizations and media from there?"
Full story >>

U.S. Tamil group urges Pacific Command not to abet Colombo's war on Tamils

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 03 March 2009, 01:53 GMT]
Citing "credible reports" from Colombo, a U.S. based activist group, People for Equality and Relief in Lanka (PEARL), on Monday said the U.S. Pacific Command (PACOM) was planning to lead an evacuation of nearly 200,000 Tamil civilians in Vanni. The plan would only serve to "exacerbate the crisis for these civilians and support ethnic cleansing in this region," the statement said and added: "Instead of an evacuation, the 'safe zones' these civilians are currently in should be strengthened, with full access for aid workers, journalists and human rights monitors."
Full story >>

'Sri Lanka: A Besieged Society' - Sivasegaram

[TamilNet, Sunday, 01 March 2009, 20:22 GMT]
The Indian establishment, pretending neutrality, backed overtly and covertly the Sri Lankan government, politically as well as militarily, using Chinese and Pakistani interests in Sri Lanka as a pretext, writes Professor S. Sivasegaram, a well-known academic and Marxist writer. “International concern on human rights violations, threat to the media, the state of lawlessness including killings and abductions, and other issues have been mere formalities and have never been translated into action.[…] Foreign governments and international organisations to demand that the LTTE should ‘release’ the people under its wings is wrong, without simultaneously insisting that the Sri Lankan government ends all attacks on civilians and ensures the safety of civilians wherever they are.”
Full story >>

75 civilians abducted in last 3 months – HRC Batticalao

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 18 February 2009, 15:27 GMT]
Human Rights Commission (HRC) in Batticalao said that 75 civilians have been abducted during the past three months at the rate of one abduction a day. Most of the abductions taking place in Batticaloa district, particularly in Padduvankarai area, have not been registered with the HRC, the sources said.29 civilians in November, 26 in December and 21 in January had been reported abducted with the HRC.
Full story >>

STF arrests Tamil woman in Batticaloa

[TamilNet, Friday, 13 February 2009, 18:36 GMT]
Special Task Force (STF) commandos arrested Friday morning a 24-year-old woman at her house in Ka’radiyanaa’ru police division in Batticaloa district, claiming that they had been informed that the woman is a former member of Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), sources in Batticaloa said. STF commandos and the paramilitary men operating with them are abducting and arresting young men and women who had been in the LTTE in Paduvaankarai area and now living a normal life, relatives of the abducted persons said.
Full story >>

IC abandons hope in liberal peace, seeks to live with Sinhala chauvinism - paper

[TamilNet, Thursday, 05 February 2009, 15:53 GMT]
The Co-Chairs statement this week marks the final collapse of the international liberal project in Sri Lanka, the Tamil Guardian newspaper’s editorial said this week. “The international actors who swaggered up in 2001 to make liberal peace in Sri Lanka never had the stomach to take on the Sinhala state's chauvinism. Instead they long pretended it doesn't exist, even as the signs were all around. Now, when it's in their faces, they simply bow to its ferocity - and ask the Tamils to do the same,” the paper said.
Full story >>

Intent of Genocide provable in Sri Lanka - Fein

[TamilNet, Saturday, 24 January 2009, 11:54 GMT]
Bruce Fein, former U.S. Deputy Associate Attorney General and currently counsel for the US-based group Tamils Against Genocide, addressing a select gathering of media persons and intellectuals organized by the Max Foundation in Chennai Friday, told the audience that there is enough evidence to criminally convict U.S. citizen Gotabaya Rajapakse and U.S. Green card holder Lt.Gen. Sarath Fonseka in the U.S. Federal Courts for "intent to commit Genocide" in Sri Lanka, sources from Chennai said.
Full story >>

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."
Full story >>

Boston Globe: Grant Tamils autonomy in homelands

[TamilNet, Friday, 26 December 2008, 22:51 GMT]
Boston Globe in an editorial published today warned that Sri Lanka’s military campaign will only produce “new phase of protracted guerrilla warfare,” and that lasting peace is possible only when Sri Lanka's government “grant[s] the Tamils meaningful autonomy in their homelands.” The paper also asserted a cautionary note to the Sri Lanka Government that “[e]thnic or nationalistic pride should not be allowed to inflict such suffering on civilians who committed no crime but to be trapped in a war zone.”
Full story >>