யாழ் திரைகடலோடி

COLOMBO (AFP) - Sri Lanka's elusive Tamil Tiger supremo marks his 52nd birthday on Sunday with a self-imposed deadline to decide the course of Asia's longest-running ethnic conflict. Velupillai Prabhakaran has no official birthday celebrations but his annual speech on Monday will be keenly watched by Sri Lankan leaders as well as those in foreign capitals struggling to broker peace. "There are no official functions or celebrations," said Tiger military spokesman Rasiah Illanthiriyan. "But many people usually have religious observances or share sweets to mark the occasion." Born on November 26, 1954 in the island's arid north, Prabhakaran, a school dro…

Report: Sri Lanka's foreign minister to visit China to discuss arms purchase(updated 02:00 p.m.) 2006/7/8 COLOMBO, Sri Lanka (AP) Sri Lanka's foreign minister will visit China next week to discuss a possible weapons purchase as the country slides toward a full-scale war with separatist Tamil Tiger rebels, a news report said Saturday. Foreign Minister Mangala Samaraweera will leave for Beijing on Wednesday to meet with his Chinese counterpart, Li Zhaoxing, The Island newspaper said. China has in the past been a major weapons supplier to Sri Lanka. The Sri Lankan Foreign Ministry spokeswoman was not immediately available for comm…

Sri Lanka's government says rebel attack caused more damage than previously reported The Associated PressPublished: October 23, 2007 COLOMBO, Sri Lanka: A rebel attack on an air base this week caused far more damage than previously acknowledged, destroying eight aircraft, including a vital surveillance plane, Sri Lanka's prime minister said Wednesday. The admission, in a statement to parliament, came amid growing accusations from the opposition that officials lied about the destruction from Monday's pre-dawn attack on Anuradhapura air base in an effort to limit their embarrassment. The incident was likely to further damage the credibility of a gover…

Sri Lanka's overseas Tamils fill rebel Tiger coffers By Peter Apps Fri Jun 23, 8:39 AM ET LONDON (Reuters) - It's thanks to Sri Lanka's overseas Tamils -- people like engineer S. Vijayadeva or accountant Kana Naheerathan -- that the rebel Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) can afford to keep up its insurgency. ADVERTISEMENT For two decades, the Tamil Tigers have fought for an ethnic Tamil homeland in Sri Lanka's north and east. They say they are the only legitimate representatives of the Tamil people, but several countries, including Britain, see them as terrorists. "Tamils have no power in the political system," 69-year-old Vijayadeva…

UN urged not to ignore Rajapakse regime [TamilNet, Friday, 09 February 2007, 12:58 GMT] The UN security council working group which is set to study underage recruitment in Sri Lanka later Friday should not ignore the practice of Sri Lanka President Mahinda Rajapakse’s regime in the practice, a senior columnist with The Guardian newspaper wrote in Friday’s edition on Guardian's 'Comment is Free' section. And condemning political movements for the violence they turn to, “whilst ignoring their complaints and the degree of support they command leads only to political stalemate and more bloodshed,” Jonathan Steele said in his column. He criticised President Rajapakse f…

A four-year-old peace deal has been shattered by a government that has resorted to copying its opponents' brutal tactics Jonathan Steele in Colombo Friday February 9, 2007 The Guardian The roadblock was unexpected. Driving to Colombo along Sri Lanka's south-west coast, we were forced on to a sidestreet by police in Hikkaduwa, one of the island's main tourist centres. There must have been a multiple crash, we assumed, as the detour along narrow village lanes took us past rice paddies shimmering in the afternoon sun. Back on the coast road, fleets of ambulances racing south seemed to confirm our suspicions. Later we discovered the problem was a bomb.…

http://news.sbs.com.au/dateline/index.php?...ysum=2006-04-19

Sri Lanka's Tamil party for political solution to ethnic issue www.chinaview.cn 2007-12-10 23:14:58 Print COLOMBO, Dec. 10 (Xinhua) -- The leader of Sri Lanka's major Tamil party said Monday that the country's ethnic issue could not be solved militarily and only a political solution can bring peace to the island. R. Sampanthan, the leader of the Tamil National Alliance told a gathering of foreign correspondents in Colombo that the Sri Lankan government was wrong in thinking that it could solve the issue by flushing out Tamil Tiger rebels from the northern Wanni district. He said peace would not come "unless the Tamil questi…

Nov 22, Colombo: Sri Lanka's private television service providers have blocked the common opposition candidate's first TV interview, media reports said here. Peo TV cable television network and Dialog TV satellite television network have reportedly blocked the Sirasa TV from broadcasting the "Satana" program which interviewed the common opposition candidate and several other members of opposition. The program was live streamed on the internet. The subscribers have complained that Peo TV cable television network and Dialog TV satellite television network have blocked Sirasa, Shakthi and MTV Sports channels of the MTV/MBC media network. The Dialog network was ba…

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY AND RECOMMENDATIONS Government attacks on the judiciary and political dissent have accelerated Sri Lanka’s authoritarian turn and threaten long-term stability and peace. The government’s politically motivated impeachment of the chief justice reveals both its intolerance of dissent and the weakness of the political opposition. By incapacitating the last institutional check on the executive, the government has crossed a threshold into new and dangerous terrain, threatening prospects for the eventual peaceful transfer of power through free and fair elections. Strong international action should begin with Sri Lanka’s immediate referral to the Commonwealth M…

Monday, May 19th marks the five-year anniversary of the end of Sri Lanka’s civil war, which claimed the lives of 40,000 to 70,000 civilians in its “catastrophic” final phase. In 2009, Congress asked the State Department to report on the humanitarian law violations during the war, and those reports make for gruesome reading. If history is a guide, this week congressional representatives will publicly call for accountability for war crimes in Sri Lanka—as members of Congress have done on the past four anniversaries. (See accompanying post, “Honor Roll of US Congressional Members Who’ve Stood for Accountability in Sri Lanka”) This post proposes specific action that cong…

Supporters of former Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa have their eyes set on the upcoming parliamentary elections, hoping to bring him back into Sri Lankan politics, a move that could pose a serious challenge to new President Maithripala Sirisena’s agenda for democratic reforms. Rajapaksa, who oversaw a military victory over Tamil Tiger guerrillas six years ago, but at the cost of the lives of more than 70,000 civilians, as the United Nations noted in a report, was dramatically defeated by his one-time ally, Sirisena, in last month’s presidential election. But Rajapaksa is not giving up yet. “What we are experiencing today is not a defeat but a result of a c…

“There were massive war crimes in the last phase which were probably the biggest bloodshed of the twenty first century” said Erik Solheim. He made above remark at the Global Tamil Forum conference yesterday. Erik Solheim was one of the key international speakers who participated at the Global Tamil Forum (GTF) third anniversary celebrations held at the Committee Room 14, Houses of Parliament in the UK yesterday. Senior Minister of State at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and former Conservative Party Chairman Baroness Warsi however referring to de-mining process, claimed progress had been made and international community could debate Sri Lanka’s achievement in…

Before the presidential election he won last November, Gotabaya Rajapaksa laid out for Banyan his vision for Sri Lanka. It was a sunlit upland of peaceful, inclusive “knowledge-based” development. All the political bickering of recent years, “Gota” promised, would be swept aside by his programme of brisk, technocratic proficiency. His years as an army officer would ensure that. A military timbre to the former lieutenant-colonel’s rule was always on the cards. Mr Rajapaksa’s campaign dwelt on the need for a “disciplined society”. Viyathmaga, a social movement with political ambitions that backed him, counted many former officers among its leaders. The president’s pers…

Disclaimer: The following document was anonymously submitted to International Policy Digest (IPD) by The Social Architects (TSA). [size=4][size=5]The Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC) Final Report contains many positive recommendations which merit immediate attention. This document is designed to capture the essence of those key positive recommendations and to come out with a meaningful action plan which will open the door to true reconciliation, sustainable peace, institutional reform and improved governance.[/size][/size] [size=4][size=5]Regrettably, the Government of Sri Lanka (GoSL) has failed to act upon these constructive LLRC recommend…

Sri Lanka’s shelling ‘declaration of war’ - LTTE [TamilNet, August 06, 2006 17:26 GMT] The Liberation Tigers said Sunday that the Sri Lankan government’s artillery bombardment of LTTE-controlled territory as amounting to “declaration of war.” The LTTE has not said if it is going to retaliate. Norwegian Special Envoy Jon Hanssen-Bauer is undertaking hectic diplomatic efforts from Kilinochchi where he had been meeting LTTE officials. “We consider this [bombardment] a declaration of war and strongly condemn the attitude of the government," S.P. Thamilselvan told Reuters through a translator via satellite phone. The LTTE called off a major counter-offensive ag…

ALMOST FOUR years ago, the Sri Lankan government of President Mahinda Rajapaksa won a decisive victory in a 26-year-long civil war with rebels from the island’s minority Tamil community. The cost was horrific: A United Nations investigation subsequently found that up to 40,000 civilians may have died in the government's final offensive. But the triumph made Mr. Rajapaksa a hero among the majority Sinhalese community and gave him an opportunity to modernize his country while healing its ethnic rift. Unfortunately, the president and his family — two brothers hold cabinet positions — have pursued just the opposite course. Having acquired a two-thirds parliamentary majorit…

Sri Lankan Armed Forces, paramilitaries are responsible for all the killings and the abductions -LTTE Spokesperson for Human Rights and Humanitarian Affairs Armed forces of the Government of Sri Lanka and its allied paramilitaries are continuing to target civilians including government servants and school students. Killings and abductions are continuing in the Jaffna peninsula and no one appears to be concerned about it. Twelve civilians including two government servants and two school students were killed within the last 12 days by the SLA and its paramilitary groups in Jaffna. A further eight civilians have been abducted and ten have sought protection from …

[size=4][size=5]An officer in the Sri Lanka Army, who fled to Canada and claimed he was ordered to plant explosives at the home of an outspoken opposition politician, is raising new questions about military abuses committed during the island nation’s long civil war.[/size][/size] [size=4][size=5]Captain Ravindra Watudura Bandanage, 38, deserted after flying to Toronto in October 2009.[/size][/size] [size=4][size=5]He has since told Canadian immigration officials he was aware of torture and other crimes carried out by government forces against minority Tamils.[/size][/size] [size=5]Testifying at his refugee hearing, he said a colonel ordered him to place bomb…

16 August 2006 21:04 Sri Lankan army warns children can be targets By Justin Huggler, Asia Correspondent Published: 16 August 2006 The Sri Lankan government has defied growing condemnation and declared that it considered children and young people killed in an air strike to be combatants and legitimate targets. "If the children are terrorists, what can we do?" said a military spokesman, Brigadier Athula Jayawardana. The government claimed that children killed and injured in the bombing on Monday were child soldiers conscripted by the Tamil Tiger rebels. The United Nations children's organisation, Unicef, condemned the air strike as "shocki…

From rags to riches: BILD.de documents the progress of Hamburg’s flagship entrepreneur, Ian Karan Kiru’s career, as he becomes Hamburg’s Economic Senator. Ian Kiru Karan who was born in Point Pedro in 1939, moved to Germany in 1970 after studying in the United Kingdom — where he went on to build one of the world’s biggest container leasing companies in Hamburg. He was recently sworn in as Senator for Economic Affairs in Hamburg. As an orphan from Sri Lanka, Ian Kiru Karan obtained a scholarship to study at the London School of Economics and later worked for the English branch of the logistics company, Schenker. Later, Karan moved to Hamburg in 1970, with no more than 3,0…

Sri Lankan born Kiwi girl takes GSK to court Shivangi Ambani-Gandhi Sunday, April 15, 2007 23:08 IST SYDNEY: In a modern day David and Goliath story, two New Zealand science students have embarrassed one of the biggest pharmaceutical companies, GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), with just a school science project. Anna Devathasan and Jenny Suo have proved that the black current drink, Ribena, which made claims of having 7mg of Vitamin C per 100ml, in fact had no detectable Vitamin C content. GSK, the maker of Ribena, has been fined AUD 2,17,500 after admitting it mislead customers about the vitamin C content of the blackcurrant drink. The company appe…

Sri Lankan civil war Full and equal membership of a political community is called citizenship. Citizenship is not merely a legal concept. It is also closely related to larger notion of equality and rights. In modern times it shows the relationship between state and its members. Equality of rights and status is one of the basic right of citizenship. As T.H.Marshall mentioned in his book "CITIZENSHIP AND SOCIAL CLASS" a status bestowed on those who are full members of a community. All who possess the status are equal with respect to the rights and duties with which the status is endowed. In a democracy there is a huge role of protest and struggle in achieving ri…

A Calgary family is facing deportation back to Sri Lanka even though two of their children were born in Canada, CTV News reported on Tuesday. The family’s eldest son, nine-year-old Maneth Fernando, penned a letter to Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada Marco Mendicino, in a last ditch effort to have the Canadian Government’s intervention. "Canada is a safe place with lots of good schools and my friends are here. If I go back, the kids in the Sri Lankan schools will laugh at me because I can only speak English," Maneth has told CTV News. The letter indicates the boy is worried "something bad will happen" to his parents and younger siblin…

Sri Lankan forces 'target church' Attacks have been on the increase since the end of the ceasefire Sri Lankan forces have been accused of targeting a church in the north-western district of Mannar. The government denies this, but eyewitnesses described how the military attacked the church. An international aid worker has confirmed it. One woman was killed and more than 40 people injured in the incident. It comes after early-morning clashes in Mannar between the Sri Lankan navy and Tamil Tiger rebels, in which more than 30 people were said to have died. Some 200 people had been sheltering at the church when a grenade was thrown in, causing d…