Sunday Leader Editor assassinated

[TamilNet, Thursday, 08 January 2009, 05:59 GMT]
Lasantha Wikramatunga, the chief editor of the English Weekly Sunday Leader, who was shot by unknown gunmen Thursday morning, has succumbed to his injuries at the hospital. Mr. Lasantha Wikramatuga was shot while he was on his way to work around 9:30 a.m. The newspaper and its editor as well as the editor of Morning Leader have been harassed and threatened continuously during the last three years. All Leader publications are very critical towards the government and exponents of opposition political views. The killing has shocked the journalists who are critical of Rajapaksa government.
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Sri Lanka bans LTTE

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 07 January 2009, 17:01 GMT]
The Government of Sri Lanka (GoSL) has proscribed the Liberation Tigers of Tamileelam (LTTE), one year after it unilaterally withdrew from the February 2002 Cease Fire Agreement (CFA) with the Tigers. The LTTE was banned in 1998, for the first time before Colombo embarked on the futile military exercise of 'Operation Jayasikurui' (Victory Assured) on Vanni mainland. Colombo had to lift the ban in 2002 before entering into the CFA agreement with the Tigers.
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'Annals of history'

[TamilNet, Saturday, 03 January 2009, 19:44 GMT]
The message of "veiled racism" in Sri Lankan president Mahinda Rajapaksa’s remarks Friday in his telecast address announcing the capture of Ki'linochchi town, betrayed the true intentions of him and his ilk, camouflaged in saintly wordings against separatism, terrorism, racism, North-South war etc, to hoodwink the outside world, writes a regular academic commentator to TamilNet from Colombo. "Unfortunately, those who claim to be at the helm of the international community, even though very well aware of the impossibility of the Sri Lankan state to satisfy Tamil aspirations, refuse to acknowledge the logic and legitimacy behind the ethnonational demand of Tamils to have political sovereignty to save themselves from genocide," he further writes.
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SL parliament to debate emergency extension motion Tuesday

[TamilNet, Saturday, 03 January 2009, 16:18 GMT]
The United Peoples Freedom Alliance (UPFA) government led by Sri Lanka's President Mahinda Rajapakse is to table a motion seeking the extension of the State of Emergency for another month when the Sri Lanka's parliament meets on January 6 Tuesday. Since August 12, 2005 the country is being governed under the State of Emergency extended every month by the parliament, sources said.
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Bomb blast in front of SLAF HQ in Colombo, airman, civilian killed

[TamilNet, Friday, 02 January 2009, 12:06 GMT]
A Sri Lanka Air Force (SLAF) airman and a civilian were killed and 36 persons, including 16 airmen were wounded in a bomb explosion in front of the SLAF head office in the high security zone in Slave Island, Colombo 2, Friday at 5:15 p.m., while the city was lighting firecrackers celebrating the occupation of Ki'inochchi town by the Sri Lanka Army. The explosion took place 15 minutes after Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa announced, in a televised address, that the SLA had captured the town of Ki'linochchi, 320 kilometres north of Colombo.
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SLA occupies Ki'linochchi town

[TamilNet, Friday, 02 January 2009, 11:20 GMT]
The Sri Lankan military authorities Friday said their forces have occupied the strategic town of Ki'linochchi in Vanni, situated 320 km north of Colombo. The Sri Lanka Army (SLA) has entered a virtual ghost town as the whole civilian infrastructure as well as the centre of the Liberation Tigers of Tamileelam (LTTE) had shifted further northeast. It is the first time after a decade the Sri Lankan forces have been able to take control of the town after several months of fierce fighting that has claimed hundreds of combatants on both sides of the war.
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Rajapaksa brings media ministry under him

[TamilNet, Thursday, 01 January 2009, 15:19 GMT]
Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa, who is also the minister of defence and minister of finance as well as a number of other ministries, on Thursday brought the ministry of media under him, transferring the Sri Lankan Minister of Mass Media, Anura Priyadharsana Yapa to take over as Minister of Investment Promotion and Enterprise Development.
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Jaffna Bishop appeals to leaders, foreign diplomats to bring in peace

[TamilNet, Thursday, 01 January 2009, 00:01 GMT]
“The Holy See Benedict XVI had urged President Mahinda Rajapaksa to stop the war and strive for peace when the president met the Holy Pope at Vatican but the war atrocities have only escalated since then,” Rt. Rev. Thomas Saundaranayagam, Bishop of Jaffna said in his New Year message for the year 2009. “The appeal made by the Bishops in Sri Lanka to stop the war too remains rejected, “ the message said.
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North and South cannot remain separate, Rajapaksa tells Jaffna people

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 31 December 2008, 08:57 GMT]
“The people of Jaffna peninsula should forget the tragic past and all people of the north and south should live as one people”, Mahinda Rajapaksa, the President of Sri Lanka, said in a special satellite television broadcast Monday night for the people of Jaffna peninsula, which has become an open prison under Sri Lanka Army (SLA) control. Another message, delivered by Mr. Rajapaksa to the people of Jaffna, was that he has taken steps to 'liberate' Ki’linochchi and Mullaiththeevu and very soon the people there will 'live like' the people of Jaffna.
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Jaffna residents asked to shun Sri Lanka Govt organized tamashas

[TamilNet, Saturday, 27 December 2008, 03:03 GMT]
In a fax message sent to the media in Jaffna peninsula Friday night, an organization calling itself Ellaa’lan Force, requested the residents of Jaffna peninsula to shun 'carnival' type events organized in Jaffna by the Government of Sri Lanka. "These events, organized to reinforce a preception of prevailing normality, are mainly used as a cover to avoid international spotlight on the killing of Tamils," the message said, according to sources in Jaffna.
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Boston Globe: Grant Tamils autonomy in homelands

[TamilNet, Friday, 26 December 2008, 22:51 GMT]
Boston Globe in an editorial published today warned that Sri Lanka’s military campaign will only produce “new phase of protracted guerrilla warfare,” and that lasting peace is possible only when Sri Lanka's government “grant[s] the Tamils meaningful autonomy in their homelands.” The paper also asserted a cautionary note to the Sri Lanka Government that “[e]thnic or nationalistic pride should not be allowed to inflict such suffering on civilians who committed no crime but to be trapped in a war zone.”
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Colombo instructs Vanni GAs to refrain from requesting aid from UN Agencies, INGOs

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 24 December 2008, 05:55 GMT]
The Sri Lankan Commissioner General of Essential Services, S.B. Divaratne, in a letter issued to the Government Agents of Vavuniyaa, Mullaiththeevu and Ki'linochchi last month has instructed the GAs to refrain from making any requests for food and non food assistance from INGOs and UN Agencies. "All your requirements should be processed throgh the Commissioner General of Essential Services, even in the event of any urgent necessity," the letter states. The content of the letter, which is interpreted as a threat to the Tamil GAs, is also document of evidence for how a structural genocide is being inflicted upon the Tamil people, an official serving under one of the GAs told TamilNet.
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Rajapaksa government rejects UNP request to summon parliament

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 24 December 2008, 05:39 GMT]
The United Peoples Freedom Alliance government led by Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa Tuesday rejected an appeal made by the main opposition United National Party (UNP) to summon the parliament immediately before the end of the year which is in recess to hold discussion on the current fuel crisis following the order of the SL Supreme Court.
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Colombo's military campaign will not resolve conflict - British Minister

[TamilNet, Friday, 19 December 2008, 11:53 GMT]
The current approach by the Government of Sri Lanka, to defeat the LTTE militarily before developing a political solution, does nothing to win the hearts and minds of conflict-affected civilians in the north and it will not resolve the underlying conflict, said Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office Bill Rammell, while responding to the concerns raised Thursday evening by British Parliamentarians at an adjournment debate on Sri Lanka at the UK Parliament. However, another response by the minister exposed the fact that the British Government still has faith in the APRC myth created by the Rajapaksa regime.
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Rajapaksa in war with judiciary - AHRC

[TamilNet, Friday, 19 December 2008, 08:11 GMT]
If the Sri Lankan Executive President wins his war against the judiciary the people will soon be heading in the direction of the type of life that prevails in places like Burma and Cambodia, said the Hong Kong based regional rights group Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) in a statement issued Friday. Stating that reports indicated that the government had already ordered the use of all propaganda at its command to support itself in this new war against the judiciary, the AHRC warned: "It will be the people themselves who will have to resolve the issue of either living under a political system which is completely under the control of the executive or to maintain the separation of powers."
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Mohan Peiris appointed Sri Lanka's new Attorney General

[TamilNet, Thursday, 18 December 2008, 16:04 GMT]
Mohan Peiris, President Counsel has been appointed Sri Lanka's twenty-fifth Attorney General. He took oaths Thursday morning before Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa.
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Sri Lanka's credit rating cut

[TamilNet, Monday, 15 December 2008, 13:06 GMT]
Sri Lanka’s credit rating was cut to five levels below investment grade by Standard & Poor’s, citing mounting public debt and political and security concerns, Bloomberg reported Monday. The new rating places the country on par with Burkina Faso and Cameroon. The other key ratings agency, Moody’s Investors Service, does not have a rating for Sri Lanka. The announcement comes shortly after the government comfortably won a budget including raising external borrowing by 25%. Sri Lanka’s external debt amounted to $12 billion at the end of 2007, almost 40 percent of gross domestic product, according to the central bank.
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Fein: Genocide charges against Sri Lanka officials ready

[TamilNet, Sunday, 14 December 2008, 06:36 GMT]
Bruce Fein, a former U.S. Deputy Associate Attorney General and currently Counsel for a U.S. Tamil Group said in an interview this week that a 400+ page model indictment charging Sri Lanka officials for genocide against Tamils will be ready to be submitted to the U.S. Justice Department first week of January. He added that the document describes the motivational context, catalogues crimes, and constructs legal arguments establishing culpability of a U.S. citizen and a U.S. greencard holder for the crime of genocide against Tamils in Sri Lanka under the U.S. Genocide Accountability Act (18 U.S.C. 1091).
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Gotabhaya Rajapaksa visits Jaffna

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 09 December 2008, 16:57 GMT]
Sri Lankan Defence Secretary and the brother of SL President Mahinda Rajapaksa, Gotabhaya Rajapaksa, paid a sudden visit to Jaffna Tuesday accompanied by the Air Chief Marshal and Sri Lanka Army (SLA) Commander Lt. Gen. Sarath Fonseka and high military officials, according to Sri Lankan Defence Ministry sources. Gotabhaya met the chiefs of the three armed forces of Sri Lanka in Palaali SLA Head Quarters where he arrived with his retinue Tuesday morning.
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Tamil Nadu leaders condemn derogatory talk of Fonseka

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 09 December 2008, 00:40 GMT]
Political leaders of Tamil Nadu, including Chief Minister Kalaignar M. Karunanidhi, condemned Monday Sri Lanka Army (SLA) Chief Lt. Gen. Sarath Fonseka for his derogatory comments on Tamil Nadu leaders in an interview to a Sri Lankan state-owned newspaper on Sunday. Vaiko, the General Secretary of the MDMK has announced a protest in front of the Sri Lankan Deputy High Commission in Chennai on December 10 demanding unconditional apology from the Sri Lankan Commander-in-Chief Mahinda Rajapaksa and the Army Chief Sarath Fonseka to the latter's astonishing remarks in the Sunday Observer newspaper.
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