CPJ condemns killing of Tamil-Language daily staffers

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 03 May 2006, 23:33 GMT]
Condemning the killing of two journalists at Tamil Language daily Uthayan, Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), in a media release issued Tuesday, called on Government of Sri Lanka to "fully investigate the attack and take measures to ensure the security of all media workers as more attacks undermine the increasingly unstable truce since planned peace talks faltered in April."
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Tamil Canadians declare "Tamil solidarity week"

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 03 May 2006, 01:28 GMT]
The Canadian Tamil Congress (CTC) an organization which represents the interest of expatriate Tamil Canadians, held a press conference Monday in Toronto to declare May 8th through the 14th as "Tamil Solidarity Week for Peace." This week will bring together Tamil Canadians and other peace-loving Canadians to express their solidarity and support for finding lasting peace in Sri Lanka," said Mr. David Poobalapillai a spokesperson for the CTC.


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Colombo assails SLMM, accuses media bias in refugee figure dispute

[TamilNet, Sunday, 30 April 2006, 16:58 GMT]
While Sri Lanka's President Mr Mahinda Rajapakse drew attention to "propaganda war," Minister Keheliya Rambukwella told the state-run weekly Sunday Observer that the Sri Lanka Government "categorically denies" and dismisses as "outrageous," accusation by the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission (SLMM) that security forces were involved in extra- judicial killings in the North-East. Gajendrakumar Ponnambalam, Tamil National Alliance (TNA) parliamentarian, said State's attempt to accuse foreign media of bias is a precursor to enforcing self-censorship. The State wants to deter foreign press from exposing military excesses of Sri Lanka armed forces, he added.
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Air strikes violate the Ceasefire Agreement- SLMM

[TamilNet, Sunday, 30 April 2006, 15:14 GMT]
"The air strikes that were conducted by the Sri Lankan Government in Trincomalee district on Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) targets in Sampoor area on 25 and 26 April 2006 are a clear violation of the Ceasefire Agreement. Article 1.2 of the Ceasefire Agreement clearly states “Neither Party shall engage in any offensive military operation," said a press release issued by Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission (SLMM) Saturday. The release also said that the SLMM fears "Government Security forces have, in the North and the East, been involved in extrajudicial killings of civilians."
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Muttur east attacks on civilian targets totally unjustifiable, Elilan tells Henricsson

[TamilNet, Thursday, 27 April 2006, 09:04 GMT]
Trincomalee Political Head of the Tigers, S. Elilan, who met Major General Ulf Henricsson, the Head of Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission (SLMM), Thursday in Sampoor in Trincomalee, said the three pronged attack launched by the Sri Lankan forces on civilian targets in Muttur east following the bomb blast that injured Lt Gen Sarath Fonseka is not justifiable. 18 civilians were killed, more than thirty wounded and many thousands displaced by indiscriminate airstrike and artillery fire by the Sri Lankan forces on Muttur east.
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International Community has failed to exert pressure on Colombo - LTTE

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 26 April 2006, 20:03 GMT]
The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), on Wednesday, called on the International Community to strongly condemn the "genocidal attempt" on the Tamil people in Muthur east in Trincomalee district. "The International Community is turning a blind eye," while Colombo has openly declared a war and is carrying out "reprehensible murders" of Tamil civilians in the Tamil homeland. The Government of Sri Lanka (GoSL) has violated gravely the ceasefire agreement (CFA) with the LTTE, said the statement issued by the Head Quarters of the Political Division of the Tigers. More than 40,000 people have displaced, terrorized and are languishing as refugees, the statement said.
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Has Sri Lankan Government declared war? - Elilan asks SLMM

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 25 April 2006, 19:18 GMT]
Mr.S.Elilan, Trincomalee district head of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) Tuesday night asked the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission (SLMM) to clarify whether the Sri Lanka Army (SLA) has launched a full-scale war violating the ceasefire agreement. Mr.Elilan made this query in his complaint lodged with the SLMM over the air strike by the Sri Lanka Air Force (SLAF) and artillery shell attack by the Sri Lanka Army and gunboat attack by the Sri Lanka Navy (SLN) on the villages in Muttur east Tuesday evening, sources said.
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SLMM condemns Colombo bomb attack

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 25 April 2006, 14:45 GMT]


Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission (SLMM) is a press release issued from Colombo condemned the "suicide bomb attack that took place at the Sri Lankan Army Head Quarters," and urged the "Sri Lankan Government to equally refrain from any retaliatory actions at this stage and remain committed to the Peace Process."
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GoSL duplicity incompatible with peace process - Thamilchelvan

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 25 April 2006, 07:56 GMT]
The Government of Sri Lanka (GoSL), which has been inciting violence with it's paramilitaries in total violation to the ceasefire agreement and working hard to sever the relationship between the LTTE and the international community, has shattered all the goodwill gestures, said S.P. Thamilchelvan, Political Head of the Tigers in a letter to the Norwegian Special Envoy Jon Hanssen Bauer on Tuesday. The Political Head of the LTTE also said that the International Community should come forward to pressure the GoSL, to calm the current tense situation and bring to an immediate end to the violence.
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Colombo ‘in a military mindset’ – Balasingham

[TamilNet, Sunday, 23 April 2006, 13:50 GMT]
With Sri Lanka’s government refusing to disarm Army-backed paramilitaries whose ‘shadow war’ against the LTTE is spiralling into increasingly cycles of revenge killings, the Ceasefire Agreement is ‘falling apart,’ the LTTE's Chief Negotiator and Political Strategist, Anton Balasingham, said this week. Colombo’s support for the paramilitaries and the escalated repression against Tamil civilians in government-controlled areas of the Northeast means "we can safely assume that Rajapakse administration has not given up the military option," he told The Sunday Leader newspaper.
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Kanniya shocked over youth's killing

[TamilNet, Saturday, 22 April 2006, 12:31 GMT]
Resettled families in Kanniya, a traditional Tamil village in Trincomalee are shocked over the killing of 17 year-old Tamil youth Pakkiaraja Baskaran alias Batchcha allegedly by soldiers of the Sri Lanka Army (SLA) Friday nigh, civil sources said. His body was recovered near Barathipuram located close to Mihindupra Saturday morning,
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Onus on Colombo to create cordial atmosphere - Thamilchelvan

[TamilNet, Friday, 21 April 2006, 12:26 GMT]
Accusing Sri Lanka Government of reneging on providing established modes of travel, and proposing impractical travel procedure that showed scant respect for the security of the Senior commanders of the Liberation Tigers, the Head of LTTE Political Wing, S.P. Thamilchelvan in an interview to TamilNet Thursday said that violence is likely to spiral out of control if Sri Lankan forces do not urgently stop killing Tamil civilians in NorthEast.
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Canadian Tamils call for stern action against Colombo

[TamilNet, Thursday, 20 April 2006, 15:01 GMT]
In a press conference held Tuesday April 18th, at the Delta Toronto East Hotel in Toronto, the Trincomalee Welfare Association (TWA) urged the Government of Canada to condemn the ethnically motivated violence on Tamil civilians in Trincomalee last week, and "to take stern measures against the Sri Lankan government for its continued failure to comply with the Ceasefire Agreement."
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"Non-violent struggle will not work," says student leader

[TamilNet, Thursday, 20 April 2006, 11:31 GMT]
"Annai Poopathy, reverently remembered today at the eighteenth anniversary of her fasting to death for the liberation of the Tamils, shines like a beacon to all of us, as dark clouds of war gather fast in our skies," said Vijayaroopan, president Jaffna University Student Union (JUSU), Wednesday at the memorial day observance held in the Jaffna University. He was one of several speakers at the Annai Poopathy memorial day observed in the districts of the NorthEast.


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Aussie TV exposes paramilitary presence in SLA controlled areas in East

[TamilNet, Thursday, 20 April 2006, 02:31 GMT]
Australia's Special Broadcasting Service (SBS) Television’s Dateline program aired for the first time video footage from a training camp of paramilitaries from Karuna Group operating from Government controlled territory in Batticaloa. In the same program, Mr Gothabaya Rajapakse, the Sri Lankan Secretary of Defence and the brother of SL President Mr. Mahinda Rajapakse, denies any knowledge of existence of paramilitaries. Previously, Mr Gothabaya Rajapakse had claimed that Sri Lanka forces could win a war against Tigers with Karuna Group's support.
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Canada ban on LTTE brings war nearer - paper

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 19 April 2006, 13:09 GMT]
By emboldening the hardliners in the Sri Lankan regime and the Sinhala nationalists who support it and, by destabilizing the balance of forces underpinning the peace process, proscriptions of the LTTE , such as Canada’s, are making war more, not less, likely, the Tamil Guardian newspaper warned Wednesday. “These forces will undoubtedly feel vindicated by the Canadian decision and take it, not unreasonably, as support for their uncompromising positions on the ethnic questions,” the expatriate fortnightly said.
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Australia condemns recent violence in Sri Lanka

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 18 April 2006, 11:53 GMT]
In a media release issued Tuesday in Colombo, the Australian Govnernment strongly condemned the "recent violence in Sri Lanka, particularly the attacks on Sri Lankan security forces personnel and civilians in the north and east," and expressed similar condemnation to the "murder in Trincomalee on 7 April of the Tamil political figure Mr V. Vigneswaran."
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Talks possible only after hurdles are cleared - Thamilchelvan

[TamilNet, Sunday, 16 April 2006, 16:32 GMT]
LTTE Political Head S.P.Thamilchelvan on Sunday, in a letter to the Norwegian Ambassador Hans Brattskar, informed that LTTE will not attend the Geneva Talks until the hurdles in front of the the LTTE to attend Geneva talks were removed and a more conducive enviornment created. He expressed the critical need for the LTTE leadership in Vanni to meet the eastern commanders before any future talks, and accused Sri Lanka Navy (SLN) for "acting in a manner that threatened the safety of LTTE commanders," thereby forcing the LTTE to cancel the sea-transport arrangement.
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Japan concerned about escalation of violence in NorthEast

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 12 April 2006, 12:42 GMT]
"The Government of Japan is seriously concerned with the recent escalation of violence in the North and East of Sri Lanka, including the claymore attack against the Navy bus on Tuesday in Thambalagamam Trincomalee..," said a press release issued by the Embassy of Japan in Colombo Wednesday.
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SLMM Head Henricsson meets Jaffna SLA, SLN commanders

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 11 April 2006, 17:29 GMT]
Head of the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission (SLMM), Major General Ulf Henricsson, who visited Jaffna and held meetings with the Sri Lanka Army and Navy Command, will meet with the LTTE political leadership in Kilinochchi Wednesday. A statement issued by the SLMM said truce monitors were making inquiries into all three attacks but will refrain from making any further comments regarding the perpetrators and possible motives until further inquiries have been done.
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