History rejects military defeat of liberation movements- Gajendrakumar

[TamilNet, Sunday, 14 September 2008, 18:22 GMT]
Responding to a question on year-end dead line set by the Government of Sri Lanka to defeat the Liberation Tigers, Gajendrakumar Ponnambalam, a Tamil National Alliance (TNA) parliamentarian from Jaffna said, "We have been told many times and by many governments of Sri Lanka that the war will be won and that the LTTE will be defeated...I am yet to come across an instance when a national liberation movement in any part of the world has been militarily defeated," in an interview published in Colombo weekly the Sunday Leader 14th edition.
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Former IGP assumes duties as Governor of demerged North

[TamilNet, Sunday, 10 August 2008, 10:48 GMT]
Former Inspector General of Police (IGP), Mr. Victor Perera, Saturday assumed duties as the first Governor of Northern Province in an event held at the chief secretariat of the Northern Provincial Council (NPC) located at Varothiayar Nagar, Trincomalee, sources said.
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Victor Perera vows to establish civil administration in North

[TamilNet, Saturday, 09 August 2008, 18:55 GMT]
Victor Perera, the former Sri Lankan Inspector General of Police (IGP), who has been appointed as the Governor of the de-merged Northern Province by the Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa, Saturday assumed duties at the Northern Provincial Secretariat located at Varoathaya Nakar in Kanniyaa, 3 km from Trincomalee of the Eastern Province. Mr. Perera said he would take steps to establish civil administration in the 'liberated areas' in the North and launch development projects there. Both the secretariats of Northern Province and Eastern Province are now functioning from Trincomalee.
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Seven leaders including G.G.Ponnambalam honored in SL parliament

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 18 June 2008, 04:29 GMT]
Seven political leaders, C.W.W.Kannangara, A.E.Goonesinghe, Dr.S.A.Wickremasinghe, G.G.Ponnambalam, Dr.N.M.Perera, Phillip Gunawardene and Alhaj T.B.Jayah were honored for their services to Sri Lanka, Tuesday in Sri Lanka's parliament. Their photographs were unveiled Tuesday morning in the parliament as a mark of respect in an event presided by Prime Minister Ratnasiri Wickremanayake, parliamentary sources said.
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Women Tigers documentary producers win award for new film

[TamilNet, Monday, 26 May 2008, 12:22 GMT]
Sabiha Sumar's "Dinner with the President: A Nation's Journey," which she made with her husband, political columnist Sachithanandam Sathananthan, won the highest award in the international documentary competition in the United Arab Emirates on Friday. Sri Lanka born Dr Sathananthan, currently in self-exile in India, and his Pakistani wife Sabiha Sumar, produced a 1996 documentary "Suicide Warriors" based on the lives of women cadre amongst the LTTE's women's brigade, some of whom belong to the elite Black Tigers.
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NESoHR condemns Fr Karunaratnam's assassination

[TamilNet, Sunday, 20 April 2008, 20:38 GMT]
Expressing "profound shock and loss," officials at the NorthEast Secretariat on Human Rights (NESoHR), in a press release issued Sunday, condemned the assassination of NESoHR's chairman, Fr. M. X. Karunaratnam, and said, he "worked tirelessly championing the Human Rights of the Tamil people. He travelled to the United States, Canada and Geneva meeting with Foreign Governments and Organizations concerned in Human Rights. Rev. Fr. Karunaratnam pioneered the work of NESoHR in the field of psychological counseling of the war and tsunami affected people in the Tamil Homeland."
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NESoHR Chairman Fr. Karunaratnam killed in DPU attack

[TamilNet, Sunday, 20 April 2008, 07:57 GMT]
Rev. Father M X Karunaratnam, the chairman of the NorthEast Secretariat on Human Rights (NESoHR), was killed in a Claymore attack carried out by a Deep Penetration Unit (DPU) of the Sri Lanka Army on Sunday, according to initial reports from Tamileelam Police. The attack took place on Mallaavi - Vavunikku'lam Road in Vanni around 12:30 p.m. Sunday, according to initial reports.
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Britain to get tough with Sri Lanka - Minister

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 27 February 2008, 13:51 GMT]
Britain will be pressing Sri Lanka’s hardline government for greater access for senior UN officials and would join European allies in taking a stronger position against Colombo over human rights abuses. In a meeting with Tamil Diaspora representatives at the British Foreign Office on Monday, Foreign Minister Lord Malloch-Brown said he would personally be attending the UN Human Rights Council meeting in Geneva next week to press the point. The government of President Rajapakse had “made political process secondary to military process,” the British Tamil Forum, a Diaspora advocacy group which attended the meeting, quoted the Minister as saying.
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Producers of documentary on Women Tigers showcase new film

[TamilNet, Friday, 15 February 2008, 05:00 GMT]
Sabiha Sumar's "Dinner with the President: A Nation's Journey," which she made with her husband, political columnist Sachithanandam Sathananthan, is the story not only of an unusual and intimate dinner with Pervez Musharraf but chronicles a series of gatherings with the constituencies of modern Pakistan, reports Salt Lake Tribune, citing the showing of the documentary at Sundance festival, Utah held 17-27 January. Sri Lanka born Dr Sathananthan, currently in self-exile in India, and his Pakistani wife Sabiha Sumar, produced a 1996 documentary "Suicide Warriors" based on the lives of women cadre amongst the LTTE's women's brigade, some of whom belong to the elite Black Tigers.
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Colombo removing witnesses to impending carnage- Gajendrakumar

[TamilNet, Monday, 07 January 2008, 00:24 GMT]
Colombo abrogated the CFA to remove the presence of the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission (SLMM) which was instrumental in exposing rights violations by all sides. "Government will want to rid the Northeast of any witnesses of the carnage that it intends to unveil on the Tamil people in the name of safeguarding the Sovereignty of the State," said Gajendrakumar Ponnambalam in an interview to TamilNet this week. He added that anti-Tamil actions by Rajapakse Government are taking place under the full glare of the International Community which is able to only make verbal condemnations, but remains largely ineffective to reign in on Colombo on the rights abuses.
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Kumar Ponnambalam remembered on eighth anniversary

[TamilNet, Saturday, 05 January 2008, 13:33 GMT]
Eighth year anniversary of Kumar Ponnambalam, president of the All Ceylon Tamil Congress, who was shot dead by unidentified gunmen at Wellawatte, a Tamil suburb of the capital Colombo around 11.15 a.m. 5 January 2000, was commemorated in U.K. and in Vanni in simple ceremonies.
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Colombo court releases Tamil youth arrested in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Monday, 19 November 2007, 07:24 GMT]
A Tamil youth arrested by soldiers of the Sri Lanka Army stationed in Kodikaamam on June 27 last year was released by the Colombo Chief Magistrate Friday after 16 months in remand under the Emergency Regulations.
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British Tamils mourn Thamilchelvan

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 07 November 2007, 00:41 GMT]
Several thousand British Tamils paid their respects Monday to the political head of the LTTE, Mr. S. P. Thamilchelvan and five other LTTE officials killed in a targeted airstrike by the Sri Lanka Air Force (SLAF) Friday. The event was addressed by parliamentarians of the Tamil National Alliance (TNA), local Tamil councilors and community figures.
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'Targeted killing of LTTE Chief Negotiator shatters hopes for peace' - TNA

[TamilNet, Friday, 02 November 2007, 11:11 GMT]
Sri Lanka’s largest Tamil political party, the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) Friday expressed its shock at the killing in a government airstrike of Mr S. P. Thamilchelvan the LTTE’s Chief Negotiator and head of its Political Wing and five other LTTE officials. The TNA said the targeted killing of the LTTE’s Chief Negotiator underlined President Mahinda Rajapakse’s insincerity towards a negotiated solution, the TNA also said.
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Supreme Court dismisses FR petitions filed by 2 Tamil women

[TamilNet, Friday, 02 November 2007, 01:35 GMT]
Three-member bench of the Sri Lanka's Supreme Court Tuesday rejected the Fundamental Rights Violation applications filed by two Tamil women being detained in remand prison since their arrest three months earlier, legal sources in Colombo said.
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Tamil mother files FR petition in Supreme Court

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 16 October 2007, 04:15 GMT]
A 28-year-old Tamil woman has filed a Fundamental Rights (FR) violation petition in the Sri Lanka's Supreme Court to order her release immediately and compensation of Rs. 500,000 for illegal arrest and detention in Welikada prison. Ganeshanathan Sridevi gave birth to her fourth child in the police station during her detainment. She has cited Borella Police Chief Inspector Kamal Pushpakumara, Inspector General of Police, Defence Secretary, Commissioner General of Prisons and Attorney General as respondents in her petition, legal sources said.
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Court directs AG to file indictment against Kilinochchi Official

[TamilNet, Sunday, 14 October 2007, 03:00 GMT]
Sri Lanka's Supreme Court Friday directed the Attorney General to file indictment against the Kilinochchi Regional Assistant Commissioner of Local Government Mr.Kandiah Alvapillai Balasubramaniam who is being detained since his arrest on 26 June under the Emergency Regulations (ER). He was taken into custody by the Borella Police following the alleged recovery of a claymore mine concealed in the diesel tank in his vehicle that brought him from Kilinochchi to Colombo on official duty.
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UN envoy meets Sri Lankan Human Rights Minister

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 10 October 2007, 06:12 GMT]
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Ms Louise Arbour, is due to meet Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapakse Thursday. She met Sri Lankan Human Rights Minister Mr.Mahinda Samarasinghe on Wednesday morning and discussed with him in detail the human rights situation on the ground, UN sources said.
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Tamil Left in Sri Lanka revisited

[TamilNet, Thursday, 13 September 2007, 02:12 GMT]
"The majoritarian nationalists have reframed the national question as a ‘terrorist problem’ and displaced it from the historical and political domain to which it belongs. They have couched their call for a military solution in a discourse of ‘sovereignty and territorial integrity’ of the majoritarian unitary state and linked it to the so called global war on terror at the same time. Now it is official that the main problem is ‘terrorism’ which has to be defeated before any ‘political solution’ can be found. The real meaning of this position is that the military solution is the political solution," writes Professor N. Shanmugaratnam, in his foreword to Ravi Vaitheespara's book on Tamil Left.
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Sri Lanka's Rights violations dominate TNA's European talks

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 15 August 2007, 18:57 GMT]
Senior members of the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) after concluding their month long visit to European capitals to meet with top Government officials, said in a press release issued Wednesday, that the meetings focussed on the "horrendous human rights situation" in Sri Lanka, the "retrogressive movement in regard to the political process," and the Sri Lanka Government's attempt to "impose a military solution" to the Tamil National conflict.
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