TRO Executive meets with UN Secretary General

[TamilNet, Sunday, 09 January 2005, 13:43 GMT]
The Executive Director of the Tamils Rehabilitation Organization (TRO), Mr. K. P. Regi, met with United Nations Secretary-General, Kofi Annan, at a meeting Sunday convened for a selected group of civil society representatives, sources in Colombo said. Mr. Regi handed over an appeal to the Secretary General. Some of the participants expressed the view that the centralised set-up planned by the Government of Sri Lanka is not effective, contains many bureaucratic bottlenecks and not sufficiently transparent to direct an equitable distribution of relief.
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Annan wants to come back to visit entire country

[TamilNet, Sunday, 09 January 2005, 11:24 GMT]
Diplomatically ducking a question whether he regretted that he could not visit the LTTE-controlled areas, visiting Secretary General of the United Nations, Kofi Annan, said in Colombo today he was "hoping to be able to come back and visit all parts of Sri Lanka, not just to visit but to celebrate peace." Visibly frustrated with his itinerary set by the government of Sri Lanka that banned him from seeing the enormous devastation caused by tsunami terror waves in the LTTE-held areas, he said that the UN was not a "one man show" and there were number of people attached to the UN agencies working in parts of the country, including the LTTE-held areas.
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Center for Healthcare (CHC) calls for Coordination of Medical Teams

[TamilNet, Sunday, 09 January 2005, 09:19 GMT]
Center for Healthcare (CHC) a nationally registered and Kilinochchi based NGO in Sri Lanka has called for all visiting medical teams to coordinate their services to maximize their efficiency in regions of need. A visiting Australian Medical Team has successfully established a model for screening all patients in specific camps with individual healthcare cards issued to each patient / family so that all medical interventions are documented. The organisation is keen to continue to extend this model to all remaining camps in the region, CHC sources said.
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Three die in grenade attack on Batticaloa funeral house

[TamilNet, Sunday, 09 January 2005, 08:56 GMT]
Three persons were killed and thirty eight persons were injured in a grenade attack on a tsunami funeral house in Vahaneri. The incident took place Saturday night around 9 PM when several people were gathered to attend a funeral of tsunami victims. An eight year old boy was among the three people who were killed, sources said.
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World Bank chief says tsunami assistance could go upto USD one billion

[TamilNet, Saturday, 08 January 2005, 19:15 GMT]
Reserving over USD 100 million to Sri Lanka from the existing projects for immediate recovery work and to rebuild the devastated homes and spectrum of livelihood, visiting World Bank chief D. Wolfensohn hinted in Colombo Saturday that the post tsunami relief assistance of the Bank to rebuild the devastated region could well go upto the mammoth USD one billion mark. He said in addition to the already released USD 10 million to Sri Lanka, an emergency credit of not less than USD 75 million, of which 40 percent would be a grant, would be made available to enable the government to begin recovery work.
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Colombo blocks Kofi Annan from touring LTTE held areas - UN officials

[TamilNet, Saturday, 08 January 2005, 10:46 GMT]
Sri Lanka's government has stopped visiting U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan from touring tsunami-ravaged areas controlled by the LTTE, despite his requests, a Reuters report filed from Hambantota said. Annan was quoted as saying: "I am here on a humanitarian mission. I would like to visit all the areas, but as you know I am here as a guest of the government and they set the itinerary". UN officials told Reuters that they had been striving to convince the government, but to no avail. "It is a relief visit, not a political one. The secretary general wanted to go, but it just didn't happen," said one official on condition of anonymity to Reuters.
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Tsunami ravaged community in northeast pleads with UN Secretary General

[TamilNet, Friday, 07 January 2005, 15:50 GMT]
Civil organizations and churches in the northeast have appealed to the UN Secretary General Kofi Annan to visit the tsunami hit regions in the LTTE controlled areas as he reached Colombo Friday 6.10 PM. Rt.Rev. Dr.Thomas Soundaranayagam, Bishop of Jaffna, Rt.Rev.Dr. J. Kingsley Swampillai, Bishop of Trincomalee-Batticaloa and Rt. Rev. Rayappu Joseph, Bishop of Mannar urged The Secretary General to visit Mullaithivu and meet LTTE leaders and discuss with them about the future rehabilitation of the Tsunami victims. Most of the appeals have highlighted the positive effects of his visit to LTTE controlled areas in promoting peace through negotiations.
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Expatriate Tamils urge Kofi Annan to visit Mullaithivu

[TamilNet, Friday, 07 January 2005, 12:16 GMT]
International Federation of Tamils (IFT), a consortium of expatriate Tamil organizations based in Geneva Switzerland has appealed to the United Nations Secretary General, Kofi Annan, to include in his itinerary a visit to the tsunami ravaged region of Mullaithivu in NorthEast of Sri Lanka, in a letter sent to the UN offices through the UNDP office in Colombo.
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US military presence will not affect Peace Process - Colin Powell

[TamilNet, Friday, 07 January 2005, 11:40 GMT]
Pledging USD 25 million for immediate relief and reconstruction of Sri Lanka, US Secretaryof State Colin Powell said in a press briefing held at the runway at the Katunayake Air Force Base, Colombo, that US military presence will not affect the ongoing peace process. Responding to a question about how long the US military would stay, he said they would remain long as it is required by the Sri lankan government and would ensure that the reconstruction and rehabilitation work is complete.


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USD 1.5 billion needed for post-tsunami reconstruction - President's aide

[TamilNet, Thursday, 06 January 2005, 15:36 GMT]
Head of Sri Lanka's newly appointed Task Force to Rebuild the Nation (TAFREN), Mr. Mano Tittawella, who is also one of the close confidante and senior advisors to President Kumaratunga, said at a press conference in Colombo Thursday that according to the initial assessment, the country needed at least USD 1.5 billion to rebuild the tsunami-hit coastal belts of Sri Lanka. He said that the international donor countries and agencies have already pledged approximately USD one billion, of which most of them were grants.
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US Senators visit tsunami-hit areas in Sri Lanka

[TamilNet, Thursday, 06 January 2005, 08:40 GMT]
Two US Senators arrived in Colombo Thursday on the part of the ongoing international assistance to Sri Lanka and undertook visits to tsunami-hit areas in the Southern and Eastern provinces.
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Security Forces continue to obstruct NorthEast relief effort- TRO

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 05 January 2005, 20:42 GMT]
"The Government of Sri Lanka has permitted Tamils Rehabilitation Organization (TRO) to engage in rehabilitation and reconstruction work in LTTE controlled as well as military controlled areas of the northeast. But the Special Task Force (STF) is acting as an obstacle to our mission. In Trincomalee, Batticaloa and Thirukovil, the STF personnel grabbed relief supplies from us and diverted them to other refugee camps of their choice," said Mr. K P Reggie, Executive Director of TRO, at the press conference in Colombo on Wednesday evening.
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TNA decries SLA's taking over of NorthEast Welfare camps

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 05 January 2005, 16:09 GMT]
"The Armed Forces taking over the management of the Welfare Camps in the Northeast would be counterproductive and would destabilize all arrangements hitherto made at the district level in the Northeast to address the several consequences of the calamity," said Mr. Sampanthan, Tamil National Alliance parliamentarian in a letter addressed to the Sri Lanka President requesting her to rescind the order given to the Armed Forces to take over the management of the Welfare Camps in the Northeast.


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"Inaccuracy in reporting damaging humanitarian delivery" - LTTE

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 05 January 2005, 13:27 GMT]
The LTTE issued an urgent appeal to the National and International Media to scrupulously verify ground information before reporting, and to avoid bias and inaccuracy in filing stories on post-Tsunami disaster situation in the North-East and the humanitarian delivery to the displaced, on Tuesday.
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Kofi Annan to visit Mullaitivu and other affected areas

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 05 January 2005, 10:58 GMT]
United Nation's Secretary General Koffi Annan will visit 'some of the hardest hit areas' in Sri Lanka when he visits the country on Friday, UN sources said Wednesday. Foreign ministry sources said Koffi Annan will visit Ampara, Galle, Hambantatota and Mullaitivu, areas worst hit by the tsunami waves on December 26.
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Sri Lanka Armed Forces take over refuges, harass TRO

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 05 January 2005, 07:30 GMT]
In a sudden move, the Sri Lankan Armed Forces are manning the refugee camps in Amparai, Batticaloa and Trincomalee since Tuesday. The Special Task Force (STF) in Thirukovil, Amparai have hijacked two tractors of TRO relief supplies and distributed them after removing the TRO labels. "The Sri Lanka Army (SLA) and Special Task Force (STF) have stepped up their harassment of workers of the Tamils Rehabilitation Organisation (TRO)", Mr.K.P.Reggie, Executive Director of the TRO, told TamilNet on Wednesday. The TRO has called for an urgent Press Conference today at 6pm at its Colombo office.
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Sri Lanka's death toll rises to 30,229 amidst pouring relief assistance

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 04 January 2005, 18:16 GMT]
Sri Lanka's official death toll aftermath of the tsunami disaster today rose to 30,229 with over 3,500 people still missing, amidst pouring international relief and rescue assistance in terms of man and materials. According to the Social Services Ministry statistics, Amparai district was the worst hit area with 10436 deaths.
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Thamilchelvan receives first consignment of Italian relief

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 04 January 2005, 09:02 GMT]
Italian Foreign Ministry Tuesday handed over a consignment of medical equipments, medicines and tents for temporary shelters to Mr. S. P. Thamilchelvan to be distributed through the rescue and relief mechanism that have been set up in Tamil areas. Thanking the Italian government and the Italian people for the kind gesture of humanitarian at a time of distress, Thamilchelvan explained to the officials how the rescue and relief operations are being conducted.
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LTTE should handle relief operation in its territory - Ranil

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 04 January 2005, 05:54 GMT]
Leader of the Main Opposition United National Front (UNF), Mr. Ranil Wickremesinghe, has said that the Liberation Tigers should handle the tsunami relief operation in the LTTE-held areas as they were the ones who handled the immediate rescue operation in those areas. Mr. Wickremesinghe, who is scheduled to visit the tsunami-wrecked areas in the Northern province Wednesday, has made these comments Monday in an exclusive interview with the Colombo-based Tamil daily, Sudar Oli.
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NLF decries induction of foreign troops

[TamilNet, Monday, 03 January 2005, 18:17 GMT]
The New Left Front (NLF), a vocal leftist group, in statement signed by the group's leader Dr. Vickramabahu Karunarathne and issued in Colombo Monday, condemned the induction of foreign troops into Sri Lanka in the guise of helping the tsunami victims. In a strongly worded statement the New Left Front said 'it is totally unnecessary to commit troops' for relief work and accused the US of having its own agenda of gaining a foothold with designs to suppress the LTTE and control the Tamil liberation struggle on behalf of local capitalist rulers."
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