Rising number of displaced makes CFA meaningless - Elilan

[TamilNet, Thursday, 25 May 2006, 21:14 GMT]
"It is meaningless to say that we live in a peaceful period with the signing of a ceasefire agreement when increasing numbers of Tamil people are being displaced and forced to live under tree shades and culverts to save their lives from aerial bombardment and artillery attacks," said Mr.Elilan, Trincomalee district political head of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) addressing a condolence meeting held at Pattalipuram Tamil School mourning the death of Mr.Oppilamany Sankaran, a member of LTTE auxiliary force.
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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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LTTE FDL commander dies in accidental explosion

[TamilNet, Thursday, 25 May 2006, 11:17 GMT]
Lt. Col. Veeramani, a former Commander of the Charles Antony Regiment of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), and later a field commanding official, responsible for the Nagarkovil Forward Defence Line (FDL) points, Wednesday night succumbed to his wounds from an accidental explosion, LTTE officials in Kilinochchi said. Lt. Col. Veeramani, who recovered from earlier wounds in the battlefield, has been in charge of FDL points in Nagarkovil.
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Kohona: paramilitary link with "lowest rank" of SL forces

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 23 May 2006, 16:50 GMT]
Amidst increasing accusations against Colombo of Sri Lankan troopers alleged involvement in extra-judicial killings and the terror-campaign let loose on Jaffna islets, Dr. Palitha Kohona, the Head of Sri Lanka Peace Secretariat, on Tuesday said that he suspects there might be contacts with the paramilitary cadres and the lower rank Sri Lankan troops.
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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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Durban Tamils demonstrate against Sri Lanka's rights violations

[TamilNet, Monday, 22 May 2006, 00:23 GMT]
More than 500 Tamil activists participated in a demonstration held Sunday in Durban, South Africa organized by the Tamil Co-ordinating Committee of South Africa, protesting against the killings of Tamil civilians in the NorthEast of Sri Lanka, sources in Durban said. Placards carried by the protesters accused the Government of Sri Lanka for the complicity of Sri Lanka security forces and paramilitaries in several killings, including the recent murders of eight residents of Allaipiddy in Jaffna islets, sources added.
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LTTE Senior Commander Ramanan assassinated

[TamilNet, Sunday, 21 May 2006, 17:04 GMT]
A Senior Commander of the Liberation Tigers in the East, Commander Ramanan, the Deputy Head of the LTTE Military wing of the Batticaloa district, was assassinated by a Sri Lanka Army (SLA) sniper at Vavunathivu Forward Defence Line (FDL), 5 km southwest of Batticaloa, Sunday around 5:30 p.m., sources in Batticaloa said.
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SLA forces attack LTTE camp- Elilan

[TamilNet, Sunday, 21 May 2006, 12:09 GMT]
Mr.S.Elilan, LTTE Trincomalee district political head Sunday complained to the Sri Lanka Monitoring Commission based in east port town that a group of soldiers of the Sri Lanka Army (SLA) had entered the LTTE controlled area, Aathiamankerni, a village in Serunuwara division and destroyed LTTE camp. This incident took place Sunday around 10.30 a.m., Mr.Elilan said.
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Senior PLOTE operative 'Farook' talks to media in Vanni

[TamilNet, Saturday, 20 May 2006, 16:01 GMT]
A senior People's Liberation Organisation of Tamil Eelam (PLOTE) operative, Sinnathamby Ganeshalingam, alias Farook, who was reported missing in December last year in Vavuniya, talked to the media this week in an undisclosed remote village in Vanni. Ganeshalingam claimed that he has begun a settled peaceful life in Liberation Tigers controlled Vanni with his wife Shantha, and refuted earlier reports that he was abducted by the Tigers. He said he left the paramilitary group after PLOTE leadership began to develop close relationships with the hardline elements in Sri Lankan military and extreme nationalist Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP).
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Stop violence, enter talks, Anti-war group tells GoSL, LTTE

[TamilNet, Thursday, 18 May 2006, 11:29 GMT]
Condemning the increasing levels of violence committed by Liberation Tigers and by the "armed groups and forces within and outside" Sri Lanka's Military, Kumar Rupesinghe, chairman of National Anti War Front, in a press release issued Thursday in Colombo urged the LTTE and the Government of Sri Lanka to "implement the agreements reached in the High Table in Geneva," and to "immediately resume the talks which were initiated in Geneva."
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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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Protests in Kilinochchi against extra-judicial killings

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 16 May 2006, 10:49 GMT]
Demonstrations were held in Killinochchi town and Visuvamadu Tuesday morning condemning the extra-judicial killings of Tamil civilians in the North East by the Sri Lankan government troops. Protesters condemned the inaction of the international organizations to stop the massacres and appealed to the international community to intervene without delay to safeguard innocent Tamils from the attack by the Sri Lankan government troops and collaborating paramilitaries, civil sources said.
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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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Wickremesinghe addresses Boston Tamils

[TamilNet, Sunday, 14 May 2006, 03:12 GMT]
Sri Lanka's Leader of Opposition and former Prime Minister, Ranil Wickremesinghe, who is completing a two-week fellowship at MIT's Center for International Studies (CIS) this week, addressed expatriate Tamils at the Boston Tamil Center on Friday at 6.30 pm, sources attending the event said.
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SLMM has no mandate to rule on Tamils sovereign rights - Thamilchelvan

[TamilNet, Friday, 12 May 2006, 09:09 GMT]
"We entered the peace process based on a status-quo achieved in the battlefield in our territory. Nobody has the right to pass judgement on the sovereign rights of our access to the adjacent sea and airspace of our homeland," told LTTE's Political Head S.P.Thamilchelvan after having an urgent meeting with the Head of the Scandinavian truce monitors on Friday. The ceasefire and the entire peace process between the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) and the Government of Sri Lanka (GoSL) is a process based on parity of status and military power of balance. The SLMM statement issued on Thursday was a serious statement affecting this framework, LTTE's Political Head told media.
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Colombo lacks realpolitik strategy- Furuhovde

[TamilNet, Friday, 12 May 2006, 04:32 GMT]
The present situation in Sri Lanka is mainly caused by Colombo's reluctant approach for a peace based on negotiations involving concessions. Central political players and its Military leadership still believe a military solution to the conflict is possible. This reflects a dangerous perception of reality and lacks a "Realpolitik strategic basis," required to handle Sri Lanka's war, wrote late Maj. Gen. (retd) Trond Furuhovde in a comment he wrote under the title "The troubled Sri Lanka" in Norwegian daily Adressa on January 30, a few days before Geneva-I talks. He touches on the geopolitical significance of the Sea route and the geographic location of the island Sri Lanka in his article.
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LTTE refutes SLMM's controversial statement

[TamilNet, Thursday, 11 May 2006, 20:26 GMT]
Liberation Tigers Political Head, S. P. Thamilchelvan, in a letter to Major General Henricsson, the Head of Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission Thursday said that the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission's statement issued earlier Thursday, stating that the Tigers have no rights at sea, was in contradiction to SLMM's earlier stand, as expressed in a Press Release on 25 April 2003. Sea Tigers existed prior to CFA and it contributed to the balance of power that resulted in the CFA. The LTTE statement attached three letters sent to SLMM explicitly asking the SLMM to stop boarding Sri Lankan naval vessels as the Lankan vessels have come very close to the shores of LTTE area firing at their naval bases.
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LTTE has no rights at sea - SLMM

[TamilNet, Thursday, 11 May 2006, 13:02 GMT]
Following the escalating violence in the sea Thursday, the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission (SLMM) said that the "sea surrounding Sri Lanka is a Government Controlled area. Non-state actors cannot rule open sea waters or airspace. The LTTE has therefore no rights at sea." Meanwhile, the Tigers have repeatedly urged the truce monitors to stay away from the Sri Lankan Navy vessels during the past few weeks, LTTE sources in Kilinochchi said.
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Eight civilians feared killed in Thenmaradchi, blood trace, clothes found

[TamilNet, Sunday, 07 May 2006, 06:36 GMT]
Villagers who went searching for eight missing youths in Manthuvil East in Thenmaradchi, Jaffna, found blood trace, pieces of clothes, 3 identity cards and at least 6 empty cases of bullets Sunday morning. Eight young men who went to Seerani Kelakkai temple in Manthuvil East, around 7 km northeast of Chavakachcheri are reported missing. A teacher and general secretary of the temple trustee board, and four students were among the victims who are feared dead. Fear has gripped the entire Kelakkai village.
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