Delhi students on hunger strike to protest Colombo's war

[TamilNet, Saturday, 24 January 2009, 13:33 GMT]
Students from different universities and colleges in New Delhi, joined by lawyers, teachers and human rights activists held a one day hunger strike Saturday expressing solidarity with Tamil people in Vanni, and protesting against the "onslaught on Tamil people in a unilateral war declared by the Sri Lanka military with a tacit understanding of the Indian Government," organizers of the event said.
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Police arrest Eastern University Tamil student in Colombo

[TamilNet, Saturday, 24 January 2009, 07:47 GMT]
Sri Lanka police arrested Friday a Tamil student of Eastern University at Kuruntuwathe, a suburb in Colombo, while he was visiting his friend, the police said.
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India, Co-Chairs backing war: Sri Lanka

[TamilNet, Friday, 23 January 2009, 16:29 GMT]
Sri Lanka said Friday its military offensive against the Tamil Tigers was supported by India and the Co-Chairs to the donor community – US, EU, Norway and Japan. Foreign Minister Rohitha Bogollagama said the Co-Chairs and Sri Lanka had a common objective of a speedy solution to the conflict. Meanwhile, Japan’s special envoy Yashushi Akashi, was quoted by the Defence Ministry as “expressing satisfaction at the efforts by the Sri Lanka Government to safeguard the civilian population in the north.” Almost a hundred civilians died this week in the military’s deliberate shelling of populated areas, including a ‘safe zone’ Colombo announced.
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White van gunmen abduct young Tamil woman in Colombo

[TamilNet, Friday, 23 January 2009, 13:03 GMT]
Four armed men who arrived in a white van abducted 22-year-old daughter of Kotahena Muththumariyamman temple assistant priest, from her residence Thursday morning around 5:30 a.m. when her parents were away in India, according to the relatives of the victims.
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Reaping what they sowed: former US diplomats write to SL President

[TamilNet, Friday, 23 January 2009, 12:01 GMT]
Six former US ambassadors served in Colombo since 1989 have written a letter in their personal capacity to Mr. Mahinda Rajapaksa, expressing their deep concern about internal threats destabilizing ‘democracy’ in Sri Lanka. They were particularly upset over the assassination of the Editor of Sunday Leader, Mr. Lasantha Wickrematunge. "The civilized world has to appreciate these diplomats voicing for a bold, sane and humane journalist," said a political commentator based in Colombo, adding however that their letter is an "open confession of the reactionary premises taken by them and by their government in the last two decades, which in fact externally contributed to the destruction of the substance of democracy in the island, retaining only a brittle shell that is crumbling now."
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7 prominent journalists flee Sri Lanka

[TamilNet, Friday, 23 January 2009, 07:30 GMT]
With the assassination of veteran editor of Sunday Leader Lasantha Wickrematunge seven Sri Lankan prominent journalists have left the country, a journalist stationed outside Sri Lanka told TamilNet Friday. Meanwhile, media reports said an editor of a pro-government Sinhala weekly 'Rivira', Upali Tennakoon, and his wife were severely assaulted by a group that arrived in motorbikes Friday morning while he was driving his car to work on Kandy Road, Imbulgoda in Gampaha district.
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Tamil Nadu gears up for more protests

[TamilNet, Friday, 23 January 2009, 05:27 GMT]
A state-wide common front of college and university students' organisations in Tamil Nadu launched protests against New Delhi and the state government demanding immediate action in stopping the war, which seeks to subjugate Tamil people who have refused to surrender into the hands of the Sri Lanka Army despite the physical and psychological war on them. 200,000 students took part in the 32 districts of the state on Wednesday, according to Dr. Vengadachalam, the organisor of the College Students' Coordinating Committee, a newly formed alliance of the students' organisations.
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Stop calling genocide a war on terrorism

[TamilNet, Friday, 23 January 2009, 02:55 GMT]
India and the so-called international community continue to demonstrate with adamancy and arrogance that they have no interest in stopping the genocide of Tamils in the island of Sri Lanka but they would rather abet it in the name of war on terrorism. The people of Tamil Nadu and the Tamil diaspora all over the world should realize that these elements are not going to listen to pleading, but will respond only when their interests are at stake. It is time that demonstrations are to be directed against them with a clear message that their strategic and economic interests will definitely be at stake by losing popular trust if they continue to play the malevolent game with the lives of Tamils, says the gist of a volume of opinion mails received by TamilNet.
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Denounce Sri Lankan identity, readers show ways

[TamilNet, Thursday, 22 January 2009, 23:26 GMT]
As a democratic move, based on principles of non-violence and non-cooperation, the Eezham Tamils should boldly denounce the Sri Lankan identity being imposed on them by the Sinhala government and the world of authoritarians, reads a significant theme of the opinion mails received by TamilNet in response to its request last Friday. “The move should begin from the diaspora for whom it is feasible now and it goes beyond any political or organizational affiliation. The diaspora ought to realize that what is more dangerous than the war camouflaged to be against the LTTE is the adamancy of India and international authoritarians not recognizing the national cause of Eezham Tamils”.
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Family man reported missing with Jaffna HRC

[TamilNet, Thursday, 22 January 2009, 11:03 GMT]
A father of three children from Vadamaraadchi had gone missing from a private lodge in Kotahena, Colombo, according to the complaint lodged by his wife to Human Rights Commission (HRC) Jaffna office. The man had obtained permission (pass) from Sri Lanka Army (SLA) authorities in Jaffna before leaving to Colombo, she said in the complaint.
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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."
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IC urged to act on humanitarian grounds to safeguard civilians

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 21 January 2009, 12:45 GMT]
Sri Lanka Army (SLA) has cornered civilians in overcrowded areas in the suburbs of Puthukkudiyiruppu (PTK) town, according to sources in Vanni. While artillery shells exploding in densely populated makeshift settlements have caused several civilian casualties, civilians are fleeing from indiscriminate bombardment from air and ground are forced to seek shelters throughout the day, civil sources from Vanni said. IDPs' representatives express fear that those who fall into the hands of SLA units are likely to be forcibly transported under close military supervision to detention centre style camps at locations isolated from mainstream communities, as evidenced in Mannaar and in areas north of the recently SLA-occupied Elephant Pass.
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Electricity supply to Jaffna peninsula faces crisis

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 21 January 2009, 05:56 GMT]
‘Agrico’, the private firm and the major electricity supplier to Jaffna peninsula Monday informed Colombo office of Sri Lanka Electricity Board (SLEB) that it will suspend operation as the contract signed with SLEB has not been renewed, sources in Jaffna said. The situation is further worsened by the inability of the Chinese firm, ‘Northern Power’ to supply electricity to the entire peninsula one year after the award of contract, sources added.
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'Lives lost yielding nothing to Colombo'

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 20 January 2009, 17:59 GMT]
"It is not a question of whether Tamil Eelam will become independent. Rather, it is a question of how many lives, on both sides of the Tamil Eelam border, the Sinhala regime(s) are prepared to waste in the process," writes a reader, Mr. Poulson, in response to TamilNet's call for opinion last week. "The Sinhala polity is not interested in a ceasefire and nor are the strategic partners. Hence it must be forced upon them," he writes further in his situation analysis.
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Sri Lanka denies FX crisis, banks on 'patriotic Diaspora'

[TamilNet, Monday, 19 January 2009, 20:10 GMT]
Sri Lanka’s foreign exchange reserves have fallen to little more than enough for six weeks of imports. And Japan, traditionally the island’s biggest donor, is cutting aid globally. But while local economists say the situation is critical government will inevitably have devalue the rupee by 20% this year or accept a conditions-laced bailout package from the IMF, the Central Bank is adamant neither is necessary, the Sunday Times reported. Instead, the government is to launch a campaign on February 4, Independence Day, to attract Sinhalese expatriates to invest in Sri Lankan treasury bills and bonds.
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'International media abetted death of journalism in Sri Lanka'

[TamilNet, Monday, 19 January 2009, 03:04 GMT]
Following the latest assassination of prominent editor Lasantha Wickramatunge of The Sunday Leader, four notable journalists, have reportedly fled Sri Lanka last week. "Had the international media, which was refused access to the war front and LTTE held territories, boycotted the government news, from the beginning itself as a measure of asserting media rights, the casualty of journalism in the island could have been avoided. But, the international media, especially the popular news agencies, are part of the game and they pay only lip service at every media casualty in the country," says a journalist formerly based in Colombo and now operating in the West.
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'Madaraasi Madam' on Eezham Tamils: comments of a Tamil journalist

[TamilNet, Sunday, 18 January 2009, 19:29 GMT]
The Tamil Nadu opposition leader Ms. Jeyalalithaa, in an interview reported by BBC on Saturday, has said that it is wrong to call the Tamils of the island of Sri Lanka as Eezhath Thamizhar, because there is no country at present called Eezham. In her opinion the right term is Ilangkaith Thamizhar. What is explicit in the statement of this leader who was made a Chief Minister twice by the people of Tamil Nadu as leader of a political party having a Dravidian label that doesn’t stand for any people at present, is her heartbeat of desire not exactly to see the elimination of the LTTE, but to see the nullification of the nationalism of Eezham Tamils inclusive of all its symbols, writes a Tamil journalist based in Chennai.
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Gotabhaya: TV station attack was self-inflicted

[TamilNet, Sunday, 18 January 2009, 12:28 GMT]
Sri Lanka’s Defence Secretary, Gotabhaya Rajapakse, claimed this week that the independent television station stormed on January 6 by over a dozen masked gunmen who threw grenades and shot up equipment with assault rifles, had in fact staged the attack to win public sympathy, because the Tamil Tigers, which he said the Sirasa station was supporting, were losing the war. He said government investigations had conclusively established this. Mr. Gotabhaya, who is also the brother of President Mahinda Rajapakse, made his comments to a state media station, The BBC Sinhala service reported Friday.
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Ramdoss exhorts Karunanidhi to urgent action in stopping Sri Lanka war

[TamilNet, Saturday, 17 January 2009, 21:08 GMT]
Pattali Makkal Katchi (PMK) leader Dr S Ramadoss, who visited VCK leader Thol Thirumavalavan, now in his fourth day of a fast-unto-death over the humanitarian crisis imposed on Tamil civilians by Sri Lanka’s punitive bombardments, exhorted Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Kalaignar M. Karunanidhi to act urgently to invoke Indian intervention to stop the war. Emphatically refuting Mr. Karunanidhi's statement that the VCK leader had “unilaterally decided” to stage a protest fast without consulting the rest of the Tamil Nadu polity, Dr. Ramadoss said Thol Thirumavalavan, whose health is detoriarating, had consulted other leaders several times in the recent weeks.
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Menon restated India’s support for war – Sri Lanka

[TamilNet, Saturday, 17 January 2009, 16:46 GMT]
Indian Foreign Secretary Shivshankar Menon, who met with Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapakse Friday “reaffirmed India’s cooperation with Sri Lanka in the attempts to eliminate terrorism from Sri Lanka and the region, and observed that at present the relations between India and Sri Lanka have never been so close, so warm and so deep,” the Colombo government said in a statement. President Rajapakse met Mr. Menon in Kandy, the ancient seat of Sinhala power, rather than in Colombo.
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