Visiting Sri Lankan Army Chief, Lieutenant General Sarath Fonseka, who is on a six-day visit to India to strengthen military ties between the two countries, today said both countries enjoy a sound military relationship.
"Militarily we have very good relationships for long time and we hope to continue relationships that we are having right now. We are very happy with that," Lt General Fonseka told media persons after being presented a Guard of Honour outside the Defense Ministry. Defence Ministry officials had earlier said that India would like to ensure that the Lankan Army retains its edge over the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) to enable the Sri Lanka Government to come out with a devolution package acceptable to the Tamil minority in that country.
Lt. Gen. Fonseka, who is accompanied by Sri Lankan Defence Secretary Gothabaya Rajapaksa, pledged to defeat the LTTE at the earliest.
The Lankan Army is presently engaged in intense battles against the LTTE in northern Sri Lanka.
According to sources, the Sri Lankan Government expects help from the international community to contain the rebel group.
The visit by the Sri Lankan Army Chief comes in the wake of the island nation increasingly looking at China and Pakistan for weapons supply in the face of India's reluctance to provide it with sophisticated arms.
Source: dailyindia.com
Tuesday, 4 March 2008
Military ties with India good: Sri Lankan Army Chief
Lanka military: Soldiers capture small rebel territory as fighting kills 7 rebels
Government troops backed by artillery and mortar fire attacked Tamil separatists guarding a front line in northern Sri Lanka, killing seven rebels on Tuesday and capturing a small piece of territory, the military said.
Troops seized about a square kilometer (0.39 square miles) of land in the Mannar district during an early morning battle that lasted one hour, said Brig. Udaya Nanayakkara, the military spokesman. Nearby troops captured a rebel post and advanced about one kilometer (more than half a mile) in a separate battle, he said without giving details.
The significance of the territory seized was unclear and rebel spokesman Rasiah Ilanthirayan did not answer calls seeking comment.
Also Tuesday, fighter jets pounded a rebel artillery gun position and an underground ammunition depot in the northern rebel-held Pooneryn area, said Air force spokesman Wing Commander Andy Wijesuriya.
He did not give details of casualties and damages, but said the bombing caused ``extensive damage'' to the rebels.
In scattered fighting along the front lines Monday, government soldiers killed 14 rebels, the military said Tuesday.
The government has said it aimed to capture the Tamil Tiger rebels' de facto state in the north and crush the group by the end of the year, but diplomats and other observers said the army was facing far more resistance than it had expected.
It was not possible to independently verify reports of the fighting because the government has restricted access to the northern jungles where the fighting was taking place. Both sides routinely exaggerate their opponents' casualty figures while underreporting their own.
The military said soldiers have driven deep into rebel territory in recent months and pushed the front lines back from three to 20 kilometers (two to 12 miles) in different areas. Fighting, which has escalated over the past two years, further flared since the government announced in January it was pulling out of a tattered cease-fire.
The Tamil Tigers have been fighting since 1983 for an independent state in the north and east for the country's ethnic Tamil minority after decades of being marginalized by Sinhalese-dominated governments. The fighting has killed more than 70,000 people.
Source: hindu.com
Saturday, 1 March 2008
Sri Lanka Army chief to pay six-day visit to India
Sri Lanka's army chief Lt. Gen. Sarath Fonseka, who has vowed to crush the Tamil Tigers, will pay a six-day visit to India from Sunday to deepen military cooperation between the two countries.
Details of Fonseka's programme have not been divulged, apparently over security considerations. The defence ministry has only said that he will briefly interact with the Indian Army here Tuesday.
He will also lay a wreath at the memorial to the Unknown Soldier at India Gate, a World War I monument, after which he will be presented a guard of honour at the defence ministry headquarters at South Block.
Fonseka, along with Defence Secretary Gothabaya Rajapaksa, leads a no-holds-barred military campaign against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) and has vowed to defeat the rebels at the earliest.
He is one of Sri Lanka's most protected figures, more so after the LTTE came close to assassinating him in April last year. He survived but had to spend many months in hospital, in Sri Lanka and abroad, before resuming work.
Military officials here told IANS ahead of Fonseka's visit that they did not want the Sri Lanka Army to slacken its drive against the LTTE, which is outlawed in India.
"India is closely engaged with Sri Lanka on two fronts," one official said. "It wants to ensure that the Sri Lanka Army maintains its upper hand over the LTTE. At the same time, Sri Lanka needs to come out with a devolution package that is acceptable to the minorities.
"India does not want to see the Sri Lanka Army losing its grip over the rebels. At the same time, there is no question of Indian military intervention beyond providing non-lethal hardware," the official added.
Towards this end, the official pointed out, the Indian and Sri Lankan navies had been conducting coordinated patrols in the narrow sea dividing the two countries. New Delhi also shares intelligence on LTTE activities with Colombo.
Thousands have been killed in fighting between the LTTE and the military in recent years.
As fighting has escalated, the Indian Air Force (IAF) has increased its surveillance over south India and is planning to conduct a series of exercises in the region this year.
Fonseka is sure to discuss military cooperation with India, which has become a touchy issue in bilateral relations.
Sri Lanka has been increasing looking at China and Pakistan for weapons supplies. Although India supplies only non-lethal military items to Sri Lanka, it provides training to Sri Lankan soldiers.
Sri Lankan leaders say they keep India informed about arms purchases from other countries.
Source: newkerala.com
India Coast guard arrests 21 Sri Lankan fishermen
Coast guard officials today arrested 21 Sri Lankan fishermen who had strayed into India's territorial waters.
The fishermen were taken into custody by the officials off the coast of southern Karaikal in Pondicherry in Tamil Nadu.
They were later taken to Chennai where they were handed over to the local police for further interrogation.
The Sri Lankan authorities however, claimed that all those arrested were innocent and had strayed into Indian waters by mistake.
"Altogether 21 people, all innocent fishermen from Sri Lanka. They don't know what they were doing, where they were going, so we are now enquiring where they were headed," said Thassin, an official from Sri Lankan Embassy.
The police also took into custody four fishing trawlers belonging to the fishermen.
Indian and Sri Lankan fishermen often cross over into each other's territorial waters by mistake and get caught.
Source: newkerala.com
Colombo urges U.K. to ban LTTE “front” organisations
Hasan Suroor
LONDON: Sri Lankan authorities here have urged the British government to ban fund-raising activities of what they described as “LTTE’s front organisations” alleging that the money collected by these groups “ostensibly” for charitable purposes went into the “coffers” of Tamil Tigers.
They said that although LTTE was banned in Britain a number of organisations claiming to be “charities” were working for it.
“These funds directly go to the coffers of the insurgent group to wage war with the Sri Lankan government and spread violence among civilian populations,” a spokesman of Sri Lankan High Commission said.
The call came ahead of a cultural show by the Tamil Youth Organisation (TYO) here on Saturday to raise funds for an educational project in Visvamadu in Sri Lanka. Sri Lankan officials called the project an extension of the LTTE.
“We have complained to the British police that Visvamadu is in the Wanni territory, where the power of the LTTE is wielded and these funds are meant for its campaign,” the spokesman said.
The TYO however denies any links with LTTE and says that it is a “charity with the interests of Tamil youth at heart”.
Primary objective
“Our primary objective is to unite Tamil Youths nationwide by acting as the central communication link and providing an opportunity for action to serve the Tamil community, both domestically and abroad.
“Such endeavours will include coordinating development projects to improve the Tamil Youth in our homeland devastated by the civil war,” it says on its website.
Source: Hindu
Friday, 29 February 2008
JVP to oppose devolution move
The Janatha Vimukthi Perumna (JVP) chief, Amarsinghe Somawansa, on Tuesday accused India of leading a campaign for “international intervention” in the name of Responsibility to Protect (R2P) the human rights of citizens, and asserted that under no circumstances would it accept any laws and measures under the 13th Amendment to the Constitution.
R2P, a concept designed by the International Crisis Group (ICG), has become a major controversy in the island nation since the ICG chief visited the country a few months ago and argued that Sri Lanka is a potential case for international intervention in view of its human rights record.
In an interaction with members of Sri Lanka Foreign Correspondents Association (FCA) here, Mr. Somawansa argued that the 13th Amendment is “illegal” and was imposed against the will of the overwhelming majority of the people of the nation by India at gun point following the Indo-Lanka Accord of 1987 and accused New Delhi of pressuring President Mahinda Rajapaksa to implement the 13th Amendment.
He accused India of having promoted cross-border terrorism by supporting the Tamil separatist groups in the 80’s and said a section of the Indian bureaucracy is misleading the Manmohan Singh government to return to the period of late 80’s when India intervened militarily.
“India is leading the R2P [Responsibility to Protect] evil axis in Sri Lanka. Delhi, Brussels, Oslo, Washington and Tokyo are the key partners in this campaign. We are very concerned about the evil design. We would not allow it to succeed in its designs,” Mr. Somawansa asserted.
Source: the hindu
IPTV unit launched by Sri Lanka Telecom
by Lin Freestone
Sri Lanka Telecom has set up a subsidiary to broadcast IPTV to its broadband customers.
The company plans to invest $1m in the initial launch of the SLT Visioncom unit. Sri Lanka Telecom considers that IPTV is a value-added service with strategic importance in the future broadband service portfolio of the company.
Sri Lanka’s telecommunications company had more than 54,000 ADSL broadband customers and 88,000 post-paid dial-up subscribers by the end of 2007.
Sri Lanka Telecom was the country’s first telecommunications company and is the successor to the former government owned Telecommunications Department. It leads the country’s telecommunication industry with 87% of the fixed line network.
Source: iptv-watch.co.uk
Sri Lankan Air Force Strikes Rebel Artillery Command; 14 Dead
Siddique Islam - AHN South Asia Correspondent
Colombo, Sri Lanka (AHN) - At least 14 Tamil Tigers rebels have been killed in fierce clashes with security forces in the country's violent northern region on Thursday. Sri Lankan Air Force jets carried out air strikes on the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam's (LTTE) artillery command center and an underground bunker located in Palai.
"In this attack 14 LTTE terrorists were killed and six T-56 assault riffles were recovered. Two soldiers were slightly injured in this attack," according to the Air Force.
Meanwhile, the LTTE alleged that two separate claymore mine attacks by the Sri Lankan army's deep penetration unit killed eight civilians in northern Mulaitivu on Thursday. In both incidents, the victims were traveling in tractor trailers to work in paddy fields, according to the statement.
More than 700 people have been killed in the escalating conflict since the beginning of this year, the military said
The LTTE has been fighting for a separate homeland for the ethnic minority Tamils in the north and east for more than two decades, resulting in the death of more than 70,000 people.
Source: allheadlinenews.com
JVP accuses India of cross-border terrorism
Accusing India of cross-border terrorism by supporting the Tamil separatist groups, Sri Lanka’s hardline JVP Marxist party has said the country was leading an international campaign for outside intervention in the island nation’s internal affairs.
India is leading the R2P (Responsibility to Protect) evil axis in Sri Lanka. Delhi, Brussels, Oslo, Washington and Tokyo are the key partners in this campaign. We are very concerned about the evil design, leader of the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP), Somawansa Amarasinghe told reporters at an interaction with Sri Lanka’s Foreign Correspondents’ Association last night.
Amarasinghe said the R2P was nothing new to Sri Lanka as it has faced several interventions in the past, with India’s direct involvement in the local civil war in the late 80s being the last one.
The members of the R2P campaign are after the natural resources in other countries. This is not the Responsibility to Protect, but to Right to Plunder, Amarasinghe said.
Coming hard on India the JVP leader said, India is once again trying to force a solution on Lanka by reactivating the 13th Amendment to the constitution that devolved powers to the provinces. He said that the Provincial Council system was imposed at gun point by India on Lanka as a solution to the ethnic conflict, but ironically the system was in operation other than the Northern and Eastern provinces, which were merged illegally by India by force without the consent of majority of the people in the country.
We will reject any solution based on the 13th Amendment, because it is illegal as it stemmed out from the Indo-Lanka Accord.
We totally reject the proposals of the All Party Representatives Committee (APRC) or the 13th Amendment as much as we oppose the Indo-Lanka Accord, Amarasinghe said, adding that India was violating the Panch Sheel policies unlike China.
Pointing out that the JVP with 39 members in Parliament holds the balance of power in the current political scenario, the JVP leader said the party would vehemently oppose the implementation of the APRC proposals.
He, however, said the party was fully supportive to the current military campaign against the Tamil Tiger rebels and wanted the rebels to be completely wiped out.
We are supporting the war and believe that the national security should be ensured and separatism should be defeated at any cost, Amarasinghe said, expressing hope that the troops would capture the Wanni from the rebels very soon.
Source: greaterkashmir.com
