HRW: Sri Lanka military complicit in forced child recruitment

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 28 November 2006, 12:39 GMT]
Sri Lankan security forces must immediately stop assisting abductions of boys and young men by the Karuna Group and help those abducted return safely to their families, Human Rights Watch said Tuesday. A HRW report to be published next month says the Sri Lankan military and police are complicit and, at times, directly cooperating with the Karuna Group. “We have clear and compelling evidence that government forces are helping Karuna forces abduct boys and young men,” said Jo Becker, children’s rights advocate at HRW.
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Rajapakse dismisses Pirapaharan’s comments

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 28 November 2006, 11:57 GMT]
Sri Lanka’s President Mahinda Rajapakse Tuesday dismissed Tamil Tiger leader Vellupillai Pirapaharan’s declaration Monday that Colombo’s intransigence has compelled Tamils no option but an independent state. Rajapakse, who is visiting India this week said he had not heard the speech. “But I have not taken it seriously. Because he has always been saying these things.” President Rajapakse’s comments come after belligerent and contradictory comments by Prime Minister Ratnasiri Wickramanayaka, government defence spokesman Rumbekwella and government Peace Secretariat chief Palitha Kohana.
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Court hears TRO's case against Central Bank

[TamilNet, Monday, 27 November 2006, 11:14 GMT]
Attorneys representing the Tamils Rehabilitation Organization (TRO) filed written submissions to High Court requesting that the Judge vacate the ex parte order of 4 September 2006 that froze TRO’s bank accounts as directed by the Judge, TRO said in a press release issued in Colombo Monday, detailing the status of the case against Central Bank of the Government of Sri Lanka.
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Viral fever sweeps Jaffna, northeast

[TamilNet, Monday, 27 November 2006, 01:16 GMT]
Viral fever, suspected to be Chikungunya, is spreading rapidly amongst people in Jaffna, medical experts said Sunday. “In Jaffna, this viral fever which has the symptoms of Chikungunya is spreading very fast. I find that more than 5,000 people have been infected," Dr. A. Ketheeswaran, director of provincial health services there, told Reuters. The disease has been confirmed spreading rapidly in Kalmunai, Mannar, Batticaloa, Puttalam and parts of Colombo.
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Bishop calls for urgent transport of food to Jaffna via A9

[TamilNet, Sunday, 26 November 2006, 16:18 GMT]
Bishop of Jaffna, Rt. Rev. Dr. Thomas Savundara nayagam, in a letter addressed to Sri Lanka's President Mahinda Rajapakse Sunday, urged the President to follow through on his proposal to send food and other essentials to Jaffna through A9 highway. The Bishop said he would like to believe that the proposal is "a humble and good gesture on the part of the Government. to build trust and confidence with the Tamil people," and as a "genuine desire of the GOSL to attend to the Humanitarian needs of the people."
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Mahinda Rajapakse leaves to India

[TamilNet, Saturday, 25 November 2006, 15:54 GMT]
Sri Lanka's President Mahinda Rajapakse left Saturday afternoon to India on a four day visit. Mr. Mahinda Rajapakse is scheduled to inaugurate the Asian Mayors Conference in Dehra Dun in Uttaranchal State in North India Sunday. Tamil mayors from Chennnai, Madurai, Tirunelveli, Saleem, Tiruchi and Coimbatore in the South Indian state of Tamil Nadu will be boycotting the Asian Mayor's meeting, media reports in Tamil Nadu said.
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SLA soldier arrested on Farm school killings

[TamilNet, Friday, 24 November 2006, 15:23 GMT]
Police Officers from Criminal Investigation Department (CID) arrested a Sri Lanka Army (SLA) soldier Friday on suspicion of involvement in the killing of five students of School of Agriculture in Thandikulam, Vavuniya last Saturday and detained him. The soldier, together with the police officer arrested earlier on Wednesday for alleged involvement in the massacre, are to be produced before Vavuniya district judge Mr Manickavasagar, Ilancheliyan on 5 December for an identification parade.
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Tamil student abducted in Colombo

[TamilNet, Friday, 24 November 2006, 13:03 GMT]
Unidentified men abducted a student Colombo Technical College Thursday night in Mattakuliya in Colombo, relatives of the abducted student in Modara said.
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Include abducted workers in CoI's list, TRO appeals to Rajapakse

[TamilNet, Friday, 24 November 2006, 04:23 GMT]
Tamils Rehabilitation Organization (TRO) appealed to Sri Lanka's President, Mahinda Rajapakse, to include the case of the seven abducted TRO workers missing since 29 and 30 January, to be included in the mandate of the Commission of Inquiry (CoI), in a press release issued from TRO's Colombo office Friday.
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Indian Foreign Secretary meets Rajapakse

[TamilNet, Thursday, 23 November 2006, 17:49 GMT]
Indian Foreign Secretary Mr. Shiv Shankar Menon Thursday evening met with Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapakse and conferred with him about the current political and conflict situation in Sri Lanka, political sources in Colombo said.
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Colombo intensifies aerial bombardment

[TamilNet, Thursday, 23 November 2006, 11:23 GMT]
Sri Lanka Air Force (SLAF) bombers intensified aerial bombardment on LTTE controlled areas for the third day on Thursday. 2 Kfir bombers dropped bombs near a civilian settlment in Oddusuddan around 9:30 a.m. and on Mullaithivu around 1:30 p.m.
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Sri Lanka Army launches tank offensive on Vaharai

[TamilNet, Thursday, 23 November 2006, 03:43 GMT]
Heavy fighting broke out between the Sri Lanka Army and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, at the southern border of Vaharai region in Batticaloa district Thursday as SLA troopers from Kajuwatte and Mankerni SLA camps, launched a ground troop movement backed by heavy mortar, artillery and Multi-Barrel Rocket fire, into the LTTE territory Thursday around 8:30 a.m. The fresh SLA operation comes following Sri Lankan defence spokesman Keheliya Rambukwela's interpretation on Wednesday that the outcome of a crucial meeting by the Co-Chairs was not hard as Colombo had feared. Mr. Rambukwela had said Sri Lanka's "national security" had a higher priority than upholding the ceasefire.
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Sri Lanka assured of Co-Chairs’ military, financial support

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 22 November 2006, 13:13 GMT]
Sri Lanka’s casual dismissal of the Co-Chairs statement Tuesday condemning rights abuses and ceasefire violations by the armed forces stems from confidence that, despite these, military and financial support from the international community is not going to be disrupted – a point reinforced by the strong messages of support for Colombo by individual representatives of the Co-Chairs soon after their meeting in Washington on Tuesday.
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Sri Lanka rejects Co-Chairs’ condemnation, continues attacks

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 22 November 2006, 12:25 GMT]
Unfazed by strong condemnation by international donors of rights abuses and truce violations by its military, Sri Lanka’s government Wednesday continued air strikes and bombardment against the Liberation Tigers. Saying the donors had been “mislead” by international truce monitors and a UN envoy, government defense spokesman Keheliya Rambukwella insisted that national security took precedence over the ceasefire and that the international community recognised this.
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MP accuses Government minister of complicity in Raviraj killing

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 21 November 2006, 00:09 GMT]
Colombo District Parliamentarian of United National Party (UNP) T.Maheswaran, addressing the parliament on Monday, accused a cabinet minister of the Government of Sri Lanka (GOSL) of complicity in the assassination of late Raviraj Nadaraj, the Jaffna District Tamil National Alliance (TNA) Parliamentarian, parliamentary sources in Colombo said.
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Colombo ignoring humanitarian catastrophe - Thamilchelvan

[TamilNet, Monday, 20 November 2006, 15:49 GMT]
Colombo was engaged in "last minute tactics to placate the international community," prior to a scheduled meeting of Co-Chairs in Washington, by dispatching a single lorry into Vaharai where 38,000 civilians were starving for the past fortnight. Likewise, Colombo was showcasing to the media that it would dispatch a single convoy of supplies through A9 into Jaffna where 600,000 Tamils are under military siege in an "open prison," charged S. P. Thamilchelvan, political head of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) Monday.
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SLN abducts Jaffna undergrad

[TamilNet, Monday, 20 November 2006, 12:55 GMT]
A third year student at the Arts faculty of Jaffna Campus has been abducted by Sri Lanka Navy (SLN) soldiers in Vangalavadi in Velanai Saturday morning, relatives said in a complaint filed at the Jaffna Human Rights Commission (HRC) offices, civil society sources said.
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New international airport for Sri Lanka's South

[TamilNet, Sunday, 19 November 2006, 21:53 GMT]
The ceremonial laying of the foundation for Sri Lanka's second international airport at Weerawilla in Hambantota, the constituency of Sri Lanka's President Rajapakse, took place Sunday around 10:00 a.m to coincide with Mr. Rajapakse's completion of one year since his becoming President, sources said.
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UNP national convention held, dissidents boycott

[TamilNet, Sunday, 19 November 2006, 13:32 GMT]
The 51st annual national of the convention of the main opposition United National Party (UNP) was held Sunday held in Colombo with Mr.Ranil Wickremasinghe, party leader in the chair. Deputy Leader Karu Jayasuriya and seventeen important leaders of the party did not attend the conference following the unsuccessful legal measure to stop the convention failed on Friday, political sources in Colombo said.


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38,000 Tamils face starvation in Vaharai, humanitarian disaster imminent - Sampanthan

[TamilNet, Sunday, 19 November 2006, 12:00 GMT]
Tamil National Alliance Parliamentary Group leader and MP for Trincomalee District, R. Sampanthan, in an urgent letter to Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapakse, Sunday, requested again the SL President that food, medicine and other essentials be urgently rushed to the people of Vakarai and Kathiraveli and urged Mr. Mahinda Rajapakse to intervene personally and take every necessary step to ensure that this is done. 8,500 families from the villages of Trincomalee district, internally displaced to Vakarai and Kathiraveli in addition to 3,500 families of the area are facing malnutrition, disease and starvation. "A grave humanitarian disaster is imminent," Mr. Sampanthan said.
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