Norway writes to Rajapakse, Pirapaharan

[TamilNet, Thursday, 08 June 2006, 19:49 GMT]
Expressing concern over the grave situation in Sri Lanka, the Royal Norwegian Government said in a statement, Thursday, that it has taken "the unprecedented step of requesting both parties, through letters to President Mahinda Rajapakse and the LTTE leader Mr Vellupilai Prabhakaran, to provide responses in writing to five critical questions". "The responses by the parties to these questions will determine which steps will next have to be taken by the Royal Norwegian Government and the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission, in close partnership with other actors in the international community," the statement further said.
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Talking peace will not win us back Tamil Homeland - TNA MP

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 07 June 2006, 10:34 GMT]
"Students have been active in the past independently and individually in the struggle for liberation. Pon. Sivakumaran was the pioneer in this struggle which continues with the participation of thousands of students until today. Peace talks will not redeem our lost nation, we can only win the Tamil homeland by the active engagement in the struggle by all people," said P. Ariyanethiran, Tamil National Alliance (TNA) Batticaloa District Parliamentarian Tuesday participating as the special guest in the 32nd Student Uprising Day celebration held at Karadiayanaru in the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) Territory in the Batticaloa district.


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Impromptu rally as UK hunger strike ends

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 07 June 2006, 09:08 GMT]
Almost a thousand Tamils gathered in front of Britain’s Houses of Parliament as Thaya Idaikader, who had been staging a hunger strike since midday Friday prepared to end it, after his scheduled 101 hours. Begun as a one-man protest against the international community’s refusal to compel Sri Lanka’s government to halt atrocities against Tamil civilians, Idaikader’s protest struck a chord with the wider Tamil community in Britain and in many other Diaspora centres around the world.
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Col.Sornam addresses displaced families in Muttur east

[TamilNet, Monday, 05 June 2006, 00:40 GMT]
Colonel Sornam, Special Commander of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in Trincomalee district Saturday addressed a gathering of several hundred displaced Tamil families who sought refuge in LTTE held Muttur east area from Tamil villages located in the Sri Lanka government territory in the Trincomalee district.
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EU ban ‘will radically transform’ Sri Lanka’s conflict - paper

[TamilNet, Saturday, 03 June 2006, 12:40 GMT]
The European Union's decision to proscribe the Liberation Tigers "sends an unambiguous message to all Sri Lankans that, when all is said and done, President Mahinda Rajapakse is being backed by the international community against the LTTE," the Tamil Guardian newspaper said in its editorial this week. Amid a slide to war, the EU move has "left the Tamils isolated and confronting the Sri Lankan state" and this will thus "radically transform the long-term strategies of both protagonists," the paper argued.
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Two EPDP cadres shot dead in Vavuniya, official wounded in Batticaloa

[TamilNet, Thursday, 01 June 2006, 07:43 GMT]
Two EPDP cadres were shot and killed at Pandarikulam in Vavuniya Thursday morning, Vavuniya Police said. Meanwhile, media coordinator of the paramilitary group in Batticaloa, was wounded in a grenade explosion in Batticaloa EPPD office.
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Mannar, Jaffna Bishops meet SL President

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 30 May 2006, 11:46 GMT]
Rev. Fr. Rayappu Joseph, Bishop of Mannar, and Rev. Fr. Thomas Saundaranayagam, Bishop of Jaffna, met Sri Lanka's President Mahinda Rajapakse Tuesday in Colombo, and discussed the ground situation in the Northeast, sources in Colombo said.
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Civilian, EPDP member killed in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Monday, 29 May 2006, 12:47 GMT]
Two civilians were killed in Jaffna district Monday in the continuing violence that has gripped the Peninsula, sources in Jaffna said. In Erlalai North near the border of Palaly High Security Zone, Subramaniam Thevaraj (alias Ranjan) was killed by unknown gunmen at 10:30 a.m. In Navanthurai inside the Municipal district, Michael Johnson was shot dead by unknown gunmen in front of St.Nicholas Church at 12:30 p.m. Monday, sources said.
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LTTE to reconsider CFA if EU bans the movement

[TamilNet, Saturday, 27 May 2006, 10:18 GMT]
Liberation Tigers will be forced to reconsider the relevance of the Cease Fire Agreement (CFA) to the peace process, and LTTE's committment and adherence to the CFA, if the European Union carries out its threat of proscribing the LTTE, S.P. Thamilchelvan, Head of LTTE's Political Wing, told TamilNet after meeting Norwegian Special Peace Envoy Jon Hanssen-Bauer in Kilinochchi on Saturday.
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Colombo imposes embargo on cement, steel, limits fuel supply to North

[TamilNet, Saturday, 27 May 2006, 09:44 GMT]
Sri Lankan defense authorities, on Friday, banned the transportation of cement and steel to North. Government Agents (GAs) in Jaffna and Vavuniya have been informed of the decision by the Defense Ministry in contravention of the provisions in the February 2002 Ceasefire Agreement, political sources said. More than 20 lorries loaded with cement have been stopped at Omanthai checkpost Friday and are being held at the checkpost awaiting instructions from Defense Ministry, sources said.
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Solheim meets SL President Rajapakse

[TamilNet, Friday, 26 May 2006, 18:34 GMT]
Mr. Erik Solheim, Norwegian International Development Minister, arrived at Katunayake International Airport Friday 6. a.m and met with Sri Lanka's President Mahinda Rajapakse at 11:00 a.m,. Mr. Solheim proceeded to India Friday around 6 p.m, where he will be meeting the Secretary of the Foreign Ministry, sources in Colombo.
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Sri Lanka gambles on EU ban taming Tigers

[TamilNet, Thursday, 25 May 2006, 16:02 GMT]
Sri Lanka’s President Mahinda Rajapakse this week hailed the expected proscription of the Liberation Tigers by the European Union next week, saying it would compel the LTTE to the negotiating table and Foreign Minister Mangala Samaraweera called on Middle Eastern countries to also proscribe the LTTE. But the LTTE warns that further proscriptions will precipitate the objective conditions for renewed war.
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Tamil schools receive circulars, official communications in Sinhala

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 23 May 2006, 14:08 GMT]
Tamil medium schools in Sri Lanka have been receiving circulars and other official documents from the Central Ministry of Education in Colombo in Sinhalese language only. No translation is provided because 99% of clerks in all eighteen branches of the Ministry of Education are Sinhalese, a senior ministry official said.


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Brattskar meets Thamilchelvan in Kilinochchi

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 23 May 2006, 11:58 GMT]
Norwegian Ambassador to Sri Lanka, Hans Brattskar met with S. P. Thamilchelvan, Political Head of Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), Tuesday around 9.00 a.m at the LTTE Peace Secretariat in Kilinochchi, and discussed the forthcoming visit of Erik Solheim, Norwegian Minister and peace envoy, and the present critical situation in Sri Lanka, said sources in Kilinochchi. Brattskar arrived in Kilinochchi after visiting the site of Allapiddy killings on Monday.


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TNA appeals for an even-handed approach

[TamilNet, Monday, 22 May 2006, 13:48 GMT]
Pointing out that the "primary cause of the current violence has been due to the refusal of the Sri Lankan State to implement key provisions of the CFA that obligates the State to disarm and dismantle Paramilitary armed groups in the Northeast of Sri Lanka," the Tamil National Alliance in a press release issued Monday, urged "that no action be taken which casts the blame on one side," cautioning that "such a step can irretrievably harm the legitimate interests of the long-suffering Tamil people," and appealed to the European Union and the International Community for a "more even-handed approach."
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Sri Lanka government can still avert new war - LTTE

[TamilNet, Monday, 22 May 2006, 11:39 GMT]
"The objective conditions for an outbreak of war are developing. Yet, there is still a space in which meaningful steps could be taken by the Sri Lankan Government to contain the violence of the paramilitaries and the excesses of the armed forces and create a congenial environment for de-escalation,” the Liberation Tigers’ theoretician and chief negotiator, Mr. Anton Balasingham said this week in an extensive interview with the Sunday Times newspaper.
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SL Navy, EPDP cadres present at massacre site - Amnesty International

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 17 May 2006, 08:13 GMT]
The Amnesty International has slammed the Government of Sri Lanka as having a record of "disturbing pattern of incomplete or ineffective investigations" of the extrajudicial killings and said it has received credible reports that Sri Lanka Navy personnel and armed cadres affiliated with Eelam People's Democratic Party (EPDP), were present at the massacre site on Kayts islet. Thirteen civilians were massacred in three spots on the Kayts islet controlled by the Sri Lanka Navy Saturday night. The EPDP, a paramilitary and a political party in the ruling UPFA alliance of the SL President Mahinda Rajapakse, had exercised tight control of the Jaffna islets before the Ceasefire Agreement.
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International silence is encouraging killings - paper

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 16 May 2006, 06:38 GMT]
The international community's continuing reluctance to criticise Sri Lanka’s leadership is encouraging atrocities against Tamil civilians, the Tamil Guardian newspaper said this week. “Emboldened by the manifest reluctance of international ceasefire monitors, leading members of the international community and southern liberals to condemn its actions, Sri Lanka’s military is now readily killing Tamil civilians with abandon,” the expatriate newspaper said in its editorial.
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Emerging pattern of agenda in attacks on TNA MP offices - Batticaloa MP

[TamilNet, Monday, 15 May 2006, 18:01 GMT]
"The office of Tamil Eelam Liberation Organisation (TELO), belonging to Vanni District Tamil National Alliance parliamentarian Selvam Adaikalanathan, was attacked on May 13, 2006. Then the office of the Jaffna MP, S. Kajendran's located in the International Students Association(ISATE) complex was attacked.These attacks could not be explained as arbitrary "acts of violence" by the Head of Sri Lankan Military, the Lankan President Mahinda Rajapakse himself or anyone in the government," slammed Batticaloa MP of Tamil National Alliance (TNA), S. Jeyanandamoorthy Monday.
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BBC ‘supporting Tamil terrorists’ - protest

[TamilNet, Monday, 15 May 2006, 12:37 GMT]
An estimated two hundred Sinhala expatriates demonstrated outside BBC headquarters in London Monday, protesting what they described as the organisation’s bias towards the Liberation Tigers. The protest, organised by a hitherto unknown group, Sri Lankans Against Terrorism (SLAT), drew together members of other Sinhala organisations and, in defiance of President Mahinda Rajapakse’s instructions, members of the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) also.
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