Sri Lanka pushing island to "full scale war" - LTTE

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 12 September 2006, 09:33 GMT]
Continuing offensives by the Sri Lankan military will compel the Liberation Tigers to switch from defensive operations to launching their own offensives, the LTTE said Wednesday. In an exclusive interview with Reuters, the head of the LTTE’s Political Wing, Mr. S. P. Thamilchelvan said the Sri Lankan military’s offensives and continuing forcible occupation of Tamil areas had rendered the 2002 Ceasefire Agreement (CFA) "meaningless" but "since the facilitators and the international community are eager to strengthen peace efforts, the LTTE is also continuing to examine options for strengthening the CFA."
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LTTE writes to ICRC: Humanitarian supplies through demarcated landroutes

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 12 September 2006, 07:55 GMT]
S. P. Thamilchelvan, the political head of the Liberation Tigers, in a letter addressed to the ICRC Head of Delegation in Sri Lanka, Toon Vandenhove, Tuesday reiterated that the LTTE pledge to stop all retaliatory fire during the land passage of, humanitarian supply convoys, ambulances, and employees of non-governmental organizations. The Ceasefire agreement (CFA), does not have specific articles about demarcation lines in sea, the letter said. "This issue [of demarcation] remains unresolved to this day. Under these circumstances it is not possible for us to provide protection to ICRC sponsored ship using the seas."
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JVP meets SLFP to decide on joining UPFA government

[TamilNet, Friday, 08 September 2006, 17:35 GMT]
Final phase of talks between Sri Lanka President Mahinda Rajapakse's Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP), the main constituent of the ruling United Peoples Freedom Alliance (UPFA) and the Sinhala ultra nationalist Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP), aimed at finding ways to join JVP with the ruling government, took place Friday evening in Colombo.
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Emergency extended for another month in Sri Lanka

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 06 September 2006, 21:46 GMT]
Sri Lanka's parliament Tuesday adopted a motion of extending the State of Emergency for another month by a majority of 99 votes. 108 members including the ruling United peoples Freedom Alliance (UPFA), main opposition United National Party (UNP), Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP), all monks' party Jathika Hela Urumaya (JHU) and other constituent parties of the government voted for the motion. Tamil National Alliance (TNA) parliamentarians voted against.
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No peace moves until Colombo respects CFA borders - LTTE

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 06 September 2006, 11:52 GMT]
The Sri Lankan government’s aggression on LTTE-controlled territory has blocked progress towards peace, the Liberation Tigers told Norwegian facilitators Wednesday. The LTTE’s Political Head, S. P. Thamilchelvan, told Norwegian Ambassador Hans Brattskar that Colombo’s invasion and occupation of LTTE-held territory has put an end to peaceful ways of stabilising the 2002 Ceasefire Agreement (CFA). Sri Lankan jets overflew Kilinochchi as Mr. Brattskar met Mr. Thamilchelvan.
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Humanitarian crisis precipitated by twin-track strategy

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 05 September 2006, 22:03 GMT]
An estimated 60,000 Tamils displaced by Sri Lankan military attacks in the eastern province are caught in a humanitarian crisis which aid workers say is being deliberately deepened by the Colombo government. The most recent displacements in the east join tens of thousands of people forced to flee their homes by military attacks in Wanni and the northern Jaffna.
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Rajapakse hails Sampoor ‘capture’

[TamilNet, Monday, 04 September 2006, 08:20 GMT]
Sri Lanka Army (SLA) troops have advanced into Sampur village in the LTTE-controlled part of the eastern Trincomalee district and are consolidating their positions, the government said Monday in Colombo. LTTE political officials in Trincomalee said fighting was ongoing in the Sampoor region. “This is a severe breach of the ceasefire agreement with the Sri Lankan military taking LTTE-controlled areas,” S. Puleedevan, head of the LTTE peace secretariat, told Reuters. “They are not honoring the ceasefire agreement. They are forcing it to the brink of collapse,” he added. “On our side we are fully committed to it.”
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‘Coordinated, deliberate’ SLA campaign in LTTE areas - SLMM

[TamilNet, Friday, 01 September 2006, 14:05 GMT]
Amid the furore triggered by international truce monitors’ findings that Sri Lankan security forces carried out the massacre of 17 aid workers, other conclusions by the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission (SLMM) lost focus, including the charge the Sri Lanka Army (SLA) carried out “deliberate, planned and coordinated offensive military operations” against LTTE cadres and civilians in LTTE-controlled areas from April 1, weeks after Norwegian facilitated talks in Geneva to de-escalate rising violence.
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Sri Lanka defiant over aid massacre charge

[TamilNet, Friday, 01 September 2006, 13:59 GMT]
Accused by international ceasefire monitors of being responsible for the massacre of 17 aid workers, Sri Lanka reacted with indignation, rejecting the findings and launching a blistering personal attack the outgoing head of the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission (SLMM), Swedish Maj. Gen. Ulf Henricson. And whilst its senior representatives lambasted the SLMM, the Sri Lankan government slapped new restrictions on other international aid workers. Meanwhile, reflecting international reaction to the SLMM’s findings, the United Nations threatened to stop its agencies’ activities in the country, a warning it subsequently toned down.
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Sri Lanka's military conducting slow pogrom - paper

[TamilNet, Friday, 01 September 2006, 10:36 GMT]
The deliberate displacement of over 160,000 Tamils by Sri Lankan military offensives and attacks this year combined with the purposeful blocking of food, medicine and relief supplies amounts to a 'slow pogrom' of the Tamils, the Tamil Guardian newspaper argued in its latest editorial. "Whilst trotting out the tired counter-insurgency rhetoric of 'hearts and minds' and a glib insistence that Tigers, not Tamils, are the target, Sri Lanka's military has always been ready to punish the Tamils for the LTTE's violence," the paper said.
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British Tamils protest against Rajapakse’s London visit

[TamilNet, Thursday, 31 August 2006, 11:53 GMT]
More than one thousand British Tamils and UK residents, Wednesday held a demonstration in front of the British Parliament in London from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. protesting against the visit of the Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapakse to London, and condemning the Sri Lankan Government for violations of the human rights of the Tamil people in Sri Lanka, the organizers of the rally said.
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SLMM blames Sri Lanka military for aid workers’ massacre

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 30 August 2006, 11:15 GMT]
International ceasefire monitors Wednesday blamed the Sri Lankan military for the massacre of 17 local aid workers from international group Action Contre La Faim earlier this month, Reuters reported, quoting Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission (SLMM). Outgoing SLMM head Ulf Henricsson, called the killings a "committed act of assassination" and "one of the most serious recent crimes against humanitarian aid workers worldwide," AP reported.
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Rajapakse seeking UK's help to secure India's support - Norwegian radio

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 30 August 2006, 09:07 GMT]
Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapakse's meeting Wednesday with British Prime Minister Tony Blair is "presumably an attempt to secure India's support in favour of Sri Lanka's policy" on the ethnic question Norwegian state radio reported, citing Oslo's Special Envoy, Jon Hanssen-Bauer.
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SLA offensive continues on Sampoor - LTTE

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 29 August 2006, 11:22 GMT]
Liberation Tigers Military Spokesman Irasaiah Ilanthirayan Tuesday evening said Sri Lanka Army (SLA) was continuing it's offensive towards Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) controlled Sampoor in Trincomalee district. SLA has intensified artillery and mortar attacks as the two-pronged offensive movement of SLA troops was contained by the Tigers, he said. "If the Sri Lankan military aggression continued, it would set a full stop to the February 2002 Ceasefire Agreement," LTTE's military spokesman has commented.
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Dozens killed in new Sri Lankan offensive on Sampoor

[TamilNet, Monday, 28 August 2006, 11:38 GMT]
Sri Lanka’s military launched a major offensive Monday to capture Tamil Tiger controlled Sampoor in the Trincomalee district. Bombs and shells have killed at least 20 civilians and wounded 26 more, LTTE sources in Sampoor told TamilNet. At least 11 SLA soldiers were killed and 79 wounded, AFP reported. The objective of the offensive was to capture Sampoor and Thoppur area, Sri Lanka Army (SLA) commander Lt. Gen. Sarath Fonseka told The Associated Press. The LTTE's Military Spokesman Irasaiah Ilanthirayan told Reuters the Sri Lankan government was trying to resume a full-scale war.
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Only a phased peace process will work - Uyangoda

[TamilNet, Monday, 28 August 2006, 06:10 GMT]
A lasting solution to Sri Lanka’s ethnic question can only emerge out of a protracted peace process with interim agreements, rather than a quest for an up-front final solution, one of the country’s leading political scientists argued this week. "Protracted ethnic conflict always requires a protracted peace process. The peace process should [aim] for an interim settlement rather than a big-bang solution. We may have to go through a series of interim managements," said Professor Jayadeva Uyangoda, Head of Department of Political Science and Public Policy, University of Colombo.
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Despair of one displaced village

[TamilNet, Sunday, 27 August 2006, 15:20 GMT]
The experience of the residents of Vellaveli, a village in the eastern Batticaloa district, is a microcosm of that of over 200,000 people who have this year joined the hundreds of thousands of long-term displaced in the island. Driven from their homes by a Sri Lankan military offensive, the rice farming families face starvation and debt-riddled ruin.
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Rajapakse invites UNP as Norway, India meet Wickremesinghe

[TamilNet, Sunday, 27 August 2006, 06:43 GMT]
Sri Lanka’s President Mahinda Rajapakse on Friday invited the main opposition United National Party (UNP) to join his government, press reports said Sunday. In a letter to the UNP leadership, President Rajapakse had called on the opposition to join his Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) led government so as to resolve the ‘crisis’ in Sri Lanka, The Sunday Leader broadsheet said. Days after two up-country Tamil parties joined the government, President Rajapakse is also courting the main Muslim party, the Sri Lanka Muslim Congress (SLMC), the paper added.
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Thamilchelvan thanks Nordic EU Members

[TamilNet, Friday, 25 August 2006, 13:37 GMT]
The outgoing Head of Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission Major General Ulf Henricsson and the newly appointed Acting Head of Mission, Major General Lars Johan Sølvberg, met Liberation Tigers Political Head Mr. S. P. Thamilchelvan in Kilinochchi Friday evening. Mr. Thamilchelvan, on behalf of the LTTE leadership, thanked Maj. Gen. Ulf Henricsson for his courageous and determined efforts, at the risk of his own safety, to resolve the Maavilaru dispute and thanked the truce monitors of Nordic EU Member States for their "four and a half year profound service."
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Sri Lanka on EU FMs' agenda

[TamilNet, Thursday, 24 August 2006, 23:39 GMT]
The situation in Sri Lanka is amongst matters European Union Foreign Ministers will discuss Friday afternoon at a meeting in Brussels, officials said. The 'extraordinary' meeting of EU Foreign ministers is primarily to deal with contributions to the United Nations peacekeeping mission in Lebanon by the EU member states, but will also consider other international matters, according to Finnish news agency STT.
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