British Tamils mark Sri Lanka's '60 years of Oppression'

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 05 February 2008, 22:42 GMT]
Tamil expatriates in Britain marked Sri Lanka's independence day with protests and publicity campaigns highlighting '60 years of oppression'. Hundreds of Tamils participated in a lively demonstration outside 10 Downing Street, the Prime Minister's official residence. Another group of expatriates hosted a major photo exhibition of Sri Lanka's post-independence history highlighting the state's repression of the Tamils.
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'Hatching chicken from spoiled egg'

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 05 February 2008, 04:15 GMT]
Ruling out any constitutional reform and upholding a 'single unitary state', the Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa in his 60th Independence Day speech harped on 'bringing the provincial administration closer to the people within the framework of the constitution' to resolve the ethnic crisis of Sri Lanka. “The solution must be based on what could be implemented in this country. We cannot offer solutions that are experiments,” he said. The challenge he stressed was the 'defeat of terrorism'. “Impotent of laying new eggs, the president is duping Tamils, promising to hatch an egg rotten for 60-years,” said Selvam Adaikkalanathan, Member of Parliament and the leader of TELO.
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UNP to boycott official Independence Day celebrations

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 30 January 2008, 12:21 GMT]
The main opposition United National Party (UNP) has decided to boycott the 60th Independence Day official celebrations to be held on February 4 led by Sri Lanka's President Mahinda Rajapakse. UNP has appealed to people to attend prayer meetings in places of worships to be organized by the party throughout Sri Lanka.
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UNP to boycott official Independence Day celebrations

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 30 January 2008, 08:03 GMT]
The main opposition United National Party (UNP) has decided to boycott the 60th Independence Day official celebrations to be held on February 4 by the government led by President Mahinda Rajapakse. Instead the UNP high commend as appealed to people to attend prayers' meeting in places of worships organized throughout the country. UNP has organized its main prayer meeting at Dalada Maligawaa in Kandy, capital of the central province with a vow to regain lost fundamental and human rights under the present regime, UNP general secretary Tissa Attanayake said.
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Contain threats against media, RSF appeals to Rajapakse

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 29 January 2008, 16:12 GMT]
Reporters Sans Frontiers (RSF), a Paris-based media watchdog, expressing concern over escalating threats and violence against media personnel in Sri Lanka, in a press release issued Tuesday appealing to Mr Rajapakse, said: "Mr. President, it is not yet too late to restrain those of your close associates and political allies who sow trouble and fear among journalists," and added, "The violent behaviour of the men employed by some of your ministers is bringing the government into disrepute, a situation that will be hard to redress if nothing is done."
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Endorsement of media repression in Sri Lanka, alarming- CPJ

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 29 January 2008, 10:37 GMT]
Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), a New York based media rights group, in a press release issued Monday, expressed alarm at "Sri Lankan Defense Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa’s brazen public call yesterday to censor the media and reintroduce criminal defamation laws." Condemning Gotabhaya's statement to Sri Lanka media, CPJ Executive Director Joel Simon said, "This is an open intimidation of the media...The Sri Lankan press sorely needs space to report independently on the escalating instability in the country, free of government intimidation."
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40 Tamils still in custody after Ja-ela claymore explosion

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 29 January 2008, 10:07 GMT]
Forty Tamils arrested following the January claymore explosion in Ja-ela that killed Mr.D.M.Dassanayake, Nation Building Minister in the cabinet of President Mahinda Rajapakse, are still being detained by the police and are being interrogated by the Terrorist Intelligence Division, according to Peliyagoda police.
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APRC proposals postponed again

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 22 January 2008, 13:47 GMT]
Rajitha Senaratne, the Sri Lankan minister of construction and engineering services, on Tuesday said that the proposal by the All Party Representatives Committee (APRC), scheduled to be handed over to Sri Lankan president on Wednesday, would be delayed as the People's United Front (Mahajana Eksath Peramuna—MEP) and the extremist all monks Jathika Hela Urumaya (JHU) have demanded to reduce the level of devolution of provincial power in the draft proposal.
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GOSL to unveil monument for Indian soldiers

[TamilNet, Monday, 21 January 2008, 12:17 GMT]
A monument to soldiers of the Indian Peace Keeping Force (IPKF) who lost their lives, while serving under the Indo-Sri Lanka peace accord in North East of Sri Lanka, is to be opened on February 4, Sri Lanka's Independence day, sources in Colombo said. The monument is located near the Sri Lanka Parliament Complex. Several Indian Military officials have previously made statements to the Indian media of the indifference Sri Lanka had shown towards casualties India suffered during the peace keeping operation.
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Colombo plans to handover Cement Factory in Jaffna to Indian firm

[TamilNet, Monday, 21 January 2008, 11:29 GMT]
The management of the Kaangkeasanthu'rai (KKS) Cement Factory located in the High Security Zone, 17 km northeast of Jaffna city, is to be handed over to the India's Birla Corporation Limited, according to Sri Lanka's Minister of Construction and Engineering Services Rajitha Senaratne. A team of officials of the Birla Corporation Limited, one of the biggest cement production companies is expected to arrive in Colombo on February 4, on the Sri Lankan Independence Day, to hold talks with SL President Mahinda Rajapaksa.
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UK: world must act to protect threatened peoples

[TamilNet, Monday, 21 January 2008, 08:27 GMT]
In a keynote speech Monday during his official visit to India, Britain’s Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, called for the shaping of a “new world order” in which the international community intervenes where populations are being threatened by "genocide, ethnic cleansing, war crimes or crimes against humanity, and the state is unwilling or unable to halt or prevent it." The world has "a responsibility to protect" Mr. Brown said. Last week, in a British Parliamentary debate on Sri Lanka, junior Foreign Minister Kim Howell called for a new ceasefire and for UN monitoring of human rights abuses in Sri Lanka.
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U.S. Pacific Fleet Commander visits Sri Lanka

[TamilNet, Friday, 18 January 2008, 13:05 GMT]
Commander of the U.S. Pacific Fleet, Admiral Robert F. Willard, visited Sri Lanka on Thursday and Friday to meet Sri Lanka Navy leadership and the Sri Lankan President and Commander-in-Chief of the SL armed forces Mahinda Rajapaksa. He also visited Trincomalee to discuss "U.S. - Sri Lankan cooperation against LTTE terrorism," according to a press release issued by the U.S. Embassy in Colombo. Reaffirming the support of the United States to Sri Lanka in defending against terrorist activity through cooperation on maritime security, he noted that improvements in human rights protection could lead to enhanced cooperation, the press release added.
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Iran's Finance Minister visits Sri Lanka

[TamilNet, Monday, 14 January 2008, 15:14 GMT]
Iran's Finance Minister Davoud Danesh-Jafari arrived in Colombo Monday on a formal three-day visit to discuss bilateral economic cooperation between the countries before visiting New Delhi on Wednesday, ministry officials at the Iranian embassy in Colombo told the Iranian news agency, the Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA). The visit by the Iranian finance minister was in response to the recent visit by Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajpaksa to Iran, according to a news report by the IRNA. Mr. Danesh-Jafari is scheduled to meet the Sri Lankan President during his stay in Colombo.
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Mob smashes SLMC Hizbullah's vehicle in Vaazhaichcheanai

[TamilNet, Saturday, 12 January 2008, 11:23 GMT]
An armed mob Saturday afternoon smashed the vehicle of M.L.A.M Hizbullah, a Sri Lanka Muslim Congress (SLMC) Executive Committee member and former minister when he went there to meet his party representatives for local election preparations as his party had decided to contest in five local councils. The SLMC has charged that the mob, linked to Muslim ministers aligned with the Mahinda Rajapaksa's government, was trained by the TMVP paramilitary group. Hizbullah has alleged that supporters of Ameer Ali, Sri Lankan minister of disaster relief services, were engaged in sabotaging the meeting he was conducting with the local Muslims.
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Sri Lankan State not secular, nor fair- Retd Indian Colonel

[TamilNet, Friday, 11 January 2008, 21:01 GMT]
Noting that Sri Lankan State has a fundamental problems that lie at the root of the conflict, Retired Indian Colonel, Mr Anil Athale, in a column appeared in Rediff Friday, says "many Indian commentators have flippantly advised Tamils to accept Sri Lankan unity without realising that Sri Lanka is not a secular State like India nor is it a 'fair State' like the UK in terms of rule of law."
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Civilians in protective custody apprehensive of future

[TamilNet, Friday, 11 January 2008, 19:02 GMT]
212 civilians in Jaffna peninsula who sought protection with Human Rights Commission (HRC) due to death threats by Sri Lanka Army (SLA) troops and SLA-backed paramilitaries, and placed in the protective custody of Jaffna prison, are uncertain of their future in after the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission (SLMM) in Jaffna ceasing to funtion in Jaffna, legal society sources in Jaffna said.
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"Military solution is all Mr. Rajapakse has left" - Wall Street Journal

[TamilNet, Friday, 11 January 2008, 15:47 GMT]
Despite holding moral high ground as countries have labelled the LTTE terrorists and cracked down on funding, Rajapakse's "commitment to the negotiated cease-fire has always been shaky," and Rajapakse and his party "have done little to win over moderate Tamils," said the Wall Street Journal in an article published in Friday edition, and added that "now, the military solution is all Mr. Rajapakse has left, and it's not a sure bet by any means."
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Conflict sustained by world equating oppressor and oppressed - paper

[TamilNet, Friday, 11 January 2008, 08:12 GMT]
The international community’s “stubborn refusal to accept, even when it is thrust in their faces, the racist oppression that underpins ethnic politics there and, consequently, the impossibility of reforming the Sinhala state,” is sustaining Sri Lanka’s conflict the Tamil Guardian newspaper argued this week. “It is [the] ready equating of the violence of the oppressor with the resistance of the oppressed which reveals the international mindset,” the paper’s editorial said.
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Indian PM to skip SL Independence Day Celebrations

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 09 January 2008, 10:43 GMT]
As Sri Lanka increased its military offensives against Tamils in the North following the abrogation of the ceasefire, the Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Monday virtually confirmed that he would not visit Colombo next month for the 60th anniversary of Sri Lanka's Independence Day on February 4. "I have not made up my mind", he said when asked whether he would be traveling to Sri Lanka next month during an interaction with journalists in New Delhi. According to reports in the Indian media, the immediate provocation for India's ire was Sri Lanka’s decision to abrogate the six year CFA without seeking to negotiate with the Tamils.
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Indian PM's participation in SL independence day not fixed

[TamilNet, Saturday, 05 January 2008, 17:12 GMT]
Sri Lanka's Foreign Minister Rohitha Bogolloagama had to hastily retract on Friday his earlier claim that Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will participate in the 60th Independence Day celebrations of Sri Lanka on February 4, 2008. A few weeks ago, Mr. Bogollagama told Parliament that Sri Lanka had invited Dr. Manmohan Singh to be the chief guest of the independence day function. The information that the dates of Manmohan Singh's proposed visit to Colombo have not been finalized was revealed a day after Bogollagama called the Indian High Commissioner Alok Prasad to inform him about GoSL's decision to abrogate the almost six-year old CFA agreement with the LTTE, informed sources said.
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