Only 1,000 Tigers left, war almost over – Fonseka

[TamilNet, Monday, 19 January 2009, 13:30 GMT]
Sri Lanka Army (SLA) commander Lt. Gen. Sarath Fonseka said Sunday that as there were only a thousand Tamil Tigers left and they were “boxed” into a small jungle area in Mullaitivu, the war would soon be won. The Tigers could not resist the 50,000 SLA soldiers surrounding them, he said. Lt. Gen. Fonseka, who spoke at an annual dinner he hosts for defence correspondents at his residence, joked that he expected most of them "to be out of work by this time next year." He wore a black shirt, adorned with a dragon strangling a tiger, Reuters reported.
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Tamil Nadu CPI, BJP leaders slam Delhi’s inaction

[TamilNet, Saturday, 17 January 2009, 22:13 GMT]
The Tamil Nadu State Secretary of the Communist Party of India (CPI), D Pandian charged Saturday that it was not enough to merely condemn the genocide in Sri Lanka, but instead one should be prepared to embrace a martyr's death. He was speaking about VCK leader Thol Thirumavalavan’s fast-unto-death over the humanitarian crisis imposed on Tamil civilians by Sri Lanka’s war. The senior CPI leader added that if India was capable of sending the Chandrayaan to the moon, it could at least do some lip-service to save the lives of Tamils by telling to the Government of Sri Lanka that it will not hesitate to interfere."
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Doctors call for attack free zones surrounding displaced hospitals

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 13 January 2009, 23:45 GMT]
In a systematic well planned militarily and politically crucial campaign, the Sri Lankan Government directed military forces are pursuing attacks on densely populated areas east of the A9 in Vanni. Often in close proximity to relocated hospitals and camps of the fleeing population, its strategy seems to be one of aerial bombardment followed by immediate ground attacks, involving heavy artillery and mortar attacks that have caused increased civilian casualties. Above statistics and ground reports, echo a plea from government service doctors in Vanni, who have called for 'attack free zones' surrounding displaced hospitals.
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3,000 Sri Lankan troops killed in three months, Army to double – newspapers

[TamilNet, Sunday, 11 January 2009, 12:37 GMT]
Three thousand Sri Lankan soldiers were killed fighting the Liberation Tigers in the past three months, the Sunday Island newspaper reported this week, quoting government Defence spokesman and Minister Keheliya Rambukwella. He was responding to opposition charges that 15,000 troops had been killed in the battles since October last year. Meanwhile SLA commander Lt. Gen. Sarath Fonseka wants to eventually double the size of the SLA to 300,000 soldiers to hold areas captured from the LTTE. A colonel of the SLA’s Air Mobile brigade was killed in a booby trap explosion in the fighting for Elephant Pass last week, the Sunday Times reported.
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Major General Chandrasiri to retire

[TamilNet, Monday, 29 December 2008, 13:17 GMT]
Major General Chandrasiri is to retire from his current position as Military Commander of the Northern district effective from 6th of January. Promotion to Sri Lanka's Highest Army post eluded Mr Chandrasiri due to the extensions provided to his friend Lt.Gen. Sarath Fonseka. Meanwhile, Maj.Gen. Mendega Samarasinghe is expected to become the new SLA commander for Jaffna, military sources in Jaffna said.
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Visit of 'strategic partners'

[TamilNet, Thursday, 18 December 2008, 12:19 GMT]
The Defense Advisers/Attaches of seven countries, USA, UK, Japan, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Maldives were taken on a one day tour to Vanni by the Colombo government on Monday. Suffering from heavy military debacles and facing serious economic crisis, the Colombo government is badly in need of parading strategic partners and abettors to attract means and justification for its genocidal war before time runs out, note political observers. The visitors represented three of the Co-Chair countries, USA, UK and Japan and four South Asian countries having maritime boundaries.
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Tigers recover 8 SLA bodies, seize 18 weapons in Ki'laali fighting

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 16 December 2008, 15:36 GMT]
Liberation Tigers of Tamileelam (LTTE) said Tuesday that they seized two Rocket Propelled Grenade (RPG) launchers, one AK-LMG, fourteen T-56 assault rifles and a 40 mm Grenade Launcher after repulsing an SLA-initiated offensive push that lasted for 9 hours from 1:20 a.m. Tuesday. The Tigers have earlier claimed that at least 40 SLA soldiers were killed and more than 120 sustained injuries. Information from Jaffna also indicates heavy casualties on SLA-side. The latest debacle of the SLA in Jaffna comes after a recent by the SLA commander Lt. Gen. Sarath Fonseka and the Sri Lankan Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa.
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Fein responds: Professorial Nonsense on Stilts

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 16 December 2008, 12:35 GMT]
Responding to the note on Secretariat for Coordinating the Peace Process (SCOPP) website by the Secretary General Prof. Rajiva Wijesinha on the model genocide indictment against Sri Lanka officials, the former U.S. Deputy Associate Attorney General Bruce Fein, says, the "Professor never denies the Rajapaksa-Fonseka genocides," but, "delivers an indictment against the LTTE as a purported defense to the Rajapaksa-Fonseka genocides." Fein adds: "The genocide prosecution sought against Sudanese President Omar Bashir has rejected such a defense theory to a charge of genocide."
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Fein: Genocide charges against Sri Lanka officials ready

[TamilNet, Sunday, 14 December 2008, 06:36 GMT]
Bruce Fein, a former U.S. Deputy Associate Attorney General and currently Counsel for a U.S. Tamil Group said in an interview this week that a 400+ page model indictment charging Sri Lanka officials for genocide against Tamils will be ready to be submitted to the U.S. Justice Department first week of January. He added that the document describes the motivational context, catalogues crimes, and constructs legal arguments establishing culpability of a U.S. citizen and a U.S. greencard holder for the crime of genocide against Tamils in Sri Lanka under the U.S. Genocide Accountability Act (18 U.S.C. 1091).
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Gotabhaya Rajapaksa visits Jaffna

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 09 December 2008, 16:57 GMT]
Sri Lankan Defence Secretary and the brother of SL President Mahinda Rajapaksa, Gotabhaya Rajapaksa, paid a sudden visit to Jaffna Tuesday accompanied by the Air Chief Marshal and Sri Lanka Army (SLA) Commander Lt. Gen. Sarath Fonseka and high military officials, according to Sri Lankan Defence Ministry sources. Gotabhaya met the chiefs of the three armed forces of Sri Lanka in Palaali SLA Head Quarters where he arrived with his retinue Tuesday morning.
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Tamil Nadu leaders condemn derogatory talk of Fonseka

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 09 December 2008, 00:40 GMT]
Political leaders of Tamil Nadu, including Chief Minister Kalaignar M. Karunanidhi, condemned Monday Sri Lanka Army (SLA) Chief Lt. Gen. Sarath Fonseka for his derogatory comments on Tamil Nadu leaders in an interview to a Sri Lankan state-owned newspaper on Sunday. Vaiko, the General Secretary of the MDMK has announced a protest in front of the Sri Lankan Deputy High Commission in Chennai on December 10 demanding unconditional apology from the Sri Lankan Commander-in-Chief Mahinda Rajapaksa and the Army Chief Sarath Fonseka to the latter's astonishing remarks in the Sunday Observer newspaper.
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Rajapaksa claims occupation of Poonakari

[TamilNet, Saturday, 15 November 2008, 09:07 GMT]
Sri Lankan President and Commander-in-Chief of the SL Armed Forces Mahinda Rajapaksa on Saturday claimed that his forces have occupied the "full stretch of the A-32 road" (Mannaar- Poonakari) and the Poonakari area Saturday morning. "Now, we can open a land route to the Jaffna Peninsula after many years; I think we can say, it was after the Second Eelam war," Mr. Rajapaksa said in a message to the Sri Lankan media.
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APRC: how long you tolerate a farce, Suresh asks India and IC

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 12 November 2008, 01:20 GMT]
The All Party Representatives Committee (APRC) is a farce of the Sri Lanka government. It was always used to impress upon India and the International Community. The basic premise of the APRC not to go beyond unitary constitution of Sri Lanka, will not bring in any meaningful result. India and the IC know it well. Yet, if they continue to tolerate the farce, they will only be abetting the genocidal programme of Colombo, says Suresh Premachandran of the Tamil National Alliance (TNA).
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'Military hijacking politics'

[TamilNet, Thursday, 06 November 2008, 15:50 GMT]
A U.S. military chief commending Sri Lankan military 'success' and wishing further capabilities to the Lankan military is viewed seriously as an undue interference in the politics of South Asia, especially at a juncture when the people of Tamil Nadu are up in arms pressing to stop the war for a political solution, says Batticaloa district parliamentarian S. Jeyanandamoorthy.
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Diaspora Tamils in Germany exhibit humanitarian aid

[TamilNet, Saturday, 11 October 2008, 08:54 GMT]
More than 3,000 Eelam Diaspora Tamils in Germany, organised by 16 Tamil organisations, demonstrated on Friday through a central part of Berlin, exhibiting humanitarian supplies that they have collected to be sent to their kith and kin in Vanni, urging the International Community to facilitate transport from Colombo to Vanni.
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Janaka Perera assassinated, blast kills 28 in Anuradhapura

[TamilNet, Monday, 06 October 2008, 03:58 GMT]
Opposition Leader of the United National Party in North Central Province, Maj. Gen (retd.) Janaka Perera and his wife, a former Sri Lanka Army officer, were killed in a bomb blast in Anuradhapura Monday morning around 8:45. Around 28 persons were killed and 80 wounded in the blast, Police said. An attacker, strapped with hidden explosives, embraced the former commander killing himself and several others, initial reports said. Janaka Perera was the UNP candidate for the Chief Minister post in 2008 Provincial Elections in North Central Province, which was marred by violence.
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Ethnocentric military dictatorship in the making in Colombo - Vanni MP

[TamilNet, Sunday, 28 September 2008, 09:47 GMT]
Tamil National Alliance parliamentarian for Vanni, Selvam Adaikkalanathan, who blamed Sri Lanka Army commander Lt. Gen. Sarath Fonseka for his Sinhala ethnocentric comments to a Canadian paper, said Sunday that the Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa, as Commander-in-Chief and the Executive President, should instruct the SLA commander to apologise for the statement. Fonseka's statement not only undermined democracy by justifying an ethnic majoritarian rule in the island of Sri Lanka, but also alluded that a military dictatorship was in the making in Colombo, he said. Meanwhile, Rauff Hakim, the leader of the Sri Lanka Muslim Congress, also blamed that the "attack on the minorities " by the SLA commander "bordered on racism."
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1200 Tamils languishing under custody in Western Province - SL Minister

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 02 September 2008, 14:35 GMT]
Upcountry Peoples Front (UPF) parliamentarian and a deputy minister in Mahinda Rajapaksa's government, P. Rathakrishnan, has compiled a report with details of around 1,200 Tamil youths of both sexes, languishing in the detention centres and prisons in South after being arrested in Colombo and its suburbs recently. Mr. Rathakrishnan has told media that he would demand the advisory committee of the Sri Lankan Defence Ministry to expedite the inquiries against the detainees and the police to ensure that innocent Tamil civilians are not harmed when enforcing 'law and order.'
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Sri Lanka officials complicit in Tamil Genocide? - Washington Times

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 20 August 2008, 01:43 GMT]
Asserting that "[t]here is reason to believe that Gotabhaya Rajapaksa has been complicit in a Srebrenica-like genocide or worse against Sri Lanka's Tamils on the installment plan. Since entering office in November 2005, he has been witness to the extrajudicial killings of more than 1,500 Tamils, torture, scores of kidnappings, countless arbitrary detentions and displacement of more than 250,000, a staggering percentage of Tamils who have not fled abroad seeking asylum," a commentary in the Washington Times, Wednesday issue, urged the U.S. Justice Department to lead a genocide investigation of Sri Lanka's Defense Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapakse, Lt.Gen. Fonseka, and Basil Rajapakse.
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NPM opposes granting police, land powers to PCs

[TamilNet, Saturday, 09 August 2008, 01:41 GMT]
The National Patriotic Movement (NPM), an extreme Sinhala nationalist organization, said Friday that it would launch a struggle if the government accedes to the demand to devolve land and police powers to provincial councils. "Granting of such powers to provincial councils is tantamount to granting Tamil Eelam to Velupillai Pirapaharan,"said Dr.Gunadasa Amarasekara, President of NPM at a press briefing held in Colombo.
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