Colombo closes in on victory in Sri Lanka's long civil war

The offensive launched two years ago by Sri Lankan government forces against Tamil Tiger rebels took on new momentum in the past few days with the capture of a key rebel naval base.

On Wednesday government troops took the port town of Vidattaltivu on Sri Lanka's northwest coast after heavy fighting. The port has been a base for the Tamil Tigers' small boat navy and is an important entry point for arms and other supplies smuggled in by the rebels, mostly from India across the Palk Strait.

Government forces swiftly consolidated their hold on Vidattaltivu and pursued Tamil fighters northwards, attacking them with air force bombers and helicopter gunships.

Officers described the capture of the port as a "fatal blow" to the Tigers, properly known as the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), who have been fighting for an independent Tamil state in northern Sri Lanka since 1983. About 70,000 people have died in the fighting and terrorist attacks by Tigers, who have targeted politicians, officials, journalists and civilians, usually in the capital, Colombo.

The Colombo government does indeed have cause for satisfaction and some confidence that its boast that it can capture all Tiger territory by the end of the year can be met.

Since the collapse of the 2002 ceasefire and peace process brokered by Norway, and the resumption of all-out civil war in 2006, government forces have had a steady succession of victories. Colombo's military now controls northeastern Sri Lanka, in part because of the defection of a local renegade Tamil Tiger commander known as "Karuna."

Though casualty claims by both sides are usually exaggerated and unreliable, the government claims to have killed 9,000 Tigers since 2006 while losing about 1,000 troops itself. Remaining Tiger forces are said to control only a shrinking area in north-western Sri Lanka.

Army Commander Lt.-Gen. Sarath Fonseka said a few days ago his soldiers have noted that the Tigers no longer have "the same strength and willpower to fight. We have already defeated them."

Fonseka is experienced enough, however, to know that even complete victory on the battlefield will not bring an end to the insurrection that has its roots in entrenched discrimination against Tamils by the country's Sinhalese majority.

In 1949 one of the first acts of the Sinhalese-dominated Sri Lankan government, fresh from independence from Britain the previous year, was to disenfranchise Indian Tamil plantation workers. The anti-Tamil drive gained momentum in 1956 with the election of the intemperate Sinhalese nationalist Solomon Bandaranaike as prime minister.

Sinhala was made the only official language, Tamils' access to government jobs and higher-level education was restricted, and measures introduced to enhance Sinhalese Buddhist culture. Most Tamils are Hindus.

Over the following years anti-Tamil riots killed hundreds of people and many thousands of Tamils were displaced. Government-sponsored anti-Tamil discrimination continues, including the extra-judicial killing of non-governmental organization workers and journalists who are deemed sympathetic to the Tamils or insufficiently loyal to the government.

In many ways the wonder is that it took until 1983 -- more than 30 years -- before the Tamil reaction to their subjugation became a full-blown separatist rebellion.

So even a conclusive military victory by the government forces now will not be a solution to Sri Lanka's internal problems.

"You might never be able to kill the last LTTE member," Foneska said, adding it is quite possible the Tigers could continue a terrorist insurgency for two decades or more.

That is more than likely. The Tamil Tigers invented the suicide bomb and have counted Sri Lankan president Ranasinghe Premadasa and former Indian prime minister Rajiv Gandhi, among their victims.

Terrorist attacks by Tigers in the past few weeks include the machine-gunning of a civilian bus in which 24 people were killed, and the assassination of the highways minister.

But, as with all civil wars, there has to be a political solution to Sri Lanka's agony. That will have to include a semi-autonomous Tamil state in northern Sri Lanka.

The concern now for all Sri Lankans and the country's neighbours is that a battlefield victory will blind the Colombo government to this necessity.

Source: Vancouver Sun

Sri Lanka journalists harassed: media group

Journalists covering Sri Lanka's war with Tamil Tiger rebels are being harassed despite a government pledge to take action to protect the press, a rights group said Friday.

The Free Media Movement (FMM) reported eight incidents of threats and intimidation, just two weeks after a ministerial committee was formed to look at the issue of media rights.

The incidents included verbal death threats, assaults in public places and visits to journalists' homes by people claiming to be from the police, the statement said.

"It is apparent that the cabinet sub-committee... is powerless to foster media freedom and the freedom of expression in Sri Lanka, or investigate meaningfully the violence directed at journalists," the FMM said.

The rights group demanded a probe into the recent incidents and asked the committee to tell police to respect journalists.

In June, Sri Lanka's hawkish defence ministry published several editorials which labelled journalists and reporters "cowboy defence analysts" and "enemies of the state."

The defence ministry presented reporters with a stark choice of being either pro-government or "pro-terrorist" -- sparking renewed alarm among media rights activists about freedom of the press in Sri Lanka.

Since August 2005, 12 media workers have been killed in Sri Lanka, which is regarded as the second-most dangerous place for journalists after Iraq.

Eleven of them died in government-controlled areas and no one has been brought to justice in connection with the deaths.

Sri Lanka's bitter ethnic war, which has left thousands of people dead, has escalated sharply since January, when the government pulled out of a Norwegian-brokered truce with the Tamil Tigers.

Source: AFP

Court stops UK from returning Tamil to Sri Lanka

The European Court of Human Rights ruled on Thursday that an ethnic Tamil man denied asylum in Britain could not be sent back to his native Sri Lanka because he would be at risk of torture there.

The ruling could have implications for hundreds of other Tamils trying to avoid expulsion from Britain to Sri Lanka.

Thursday's ruling centred on a 33-year-old man who sought asylum in Britain in 1999 citing fears of ill-treatment by the Sri Lankan authorities, who had detained him six times in seven years on suspicion of involvement with the rebel Tamil Tigers.

The man had been released without charge every time. He was ill-treated during at least one of his detentions and his legs bear scars from being beaten with batons.

The man also feared the Tigers because his father had done some work for the Sri Lankan army, which has been fighting the rebels for 25 years in a civil war estimated to have killed 70,000 people.

The European Court of Human Rights said it had received an increasing number of petitions from ethnic Tamils facing expulsion to Sri Lanka from Britain and it had asked British authorities to suspend 342 procedures pending rulings.

Fighting has intensified in the north of Sri Lanka after the army, which has vowed to finish off the Tigers this year, drove the rebels out of their eastern enclave in 2007.

The Tigers, fighting for an independent state for the ethnic Tamil minority in predominantly Sinhalese Sri Lanka, regularly retaliate with suicide attacks.

In its ruling, the European Court of Human Rights "took note of the current climate of general violence in Sri Lanka", according to a summary posted on the court's website.

The court agreed with British authorities that the deterioration in security did not create a general risk for all Tamils returning to Sri Lanka, but it found there were specific risk factors in the case they were examining.

The court said the man's father had signed a document to ensure his release from detention and therefore it was possible authorities would have records of him and would detain him on arrival in Colombo.

"The court considered that where there was a sufficient risk that an applicant would be detained ... the presence of scarring, with all the significance that the Sri Lankan authorities were then likely to attach to it, had to be taken as greatly increasing the cumulative risk of ill-treatment."

Source: Reuters

I am still the boss - Tillakaratne

Hashan Tillakaratne maintains he is still the manager of the Sri Lankan cricket team despite reports he was removed a day after he took over.

A report in the Daily Mirror said sports minister Gamini Lokuge refused to endorse Tillakaratne's appointment for political reasons. Tillakeratne is a member of the opposition United National Party.

But the left-handed batsman told reporters after the team's morning practice at the Sinhalese Sports Club: "As far as I am concerned, I am still the team's manager and there has been no letter to suggest that I am not."

He added: "I offered my services and it was accepted."

The former opening batsman replaced Shriyan Samararatne, who's term ended after the Asia Cup.

Tillakaratne's appointment has been ratified by Sri Lanka Cricket's Interim Committee, the governing body of the sport in the country.

However, his appointment needs to be ratified by the sports ministry, a step which is still pending.

Tillakaratne continues as manager until then.

Source: PA

Sri Lanka gets tough on UN, aid visas

Sri Lanka's government on Thursday unveiled new restrictions on how long United Nations and other foreign aid staff are allowed to work on the war-torn island.

The new regulations come amid a backdrop of mounting tensions between the government and the United Nations and key member states, who have been highly critical over how the war against Tamil Tiger rebels is being conducted.

Under the new Sri Lankan foreign ministry rules, foreign nationals will not be allowed to stay more than four years in a single place, while experts and advisers will only be allowed into the country for a year.

Previously rules regarding foreigners were flexible and allowed for people to stay in the country for long periods of time.

UN and other aid agencies will also not be allowed to create new positions without prior approval from Colombo.

The ministry said the rules where designed to "consolidate the linkages between the UN and other international organisations with ministries dealing with the relevant sectors of activities."

Sri Lanka's government, which pulled out of a Norwegian-brokered ceasefire with Tamil Tigers in January, has seen its relationship with the UN and other key donors worsen over the past year.

The UN's human rights body has asked it be allowed to set up a monitoring office on the island amid reports of widespread disappearances, abductions and murders linked to the conflict.

Colombo has rejected the demand and accused Louise Arbour, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, of "obvious bias" after she hinted Sri Lankan officials were exposing themselves to the risk of war crimes charges.

The hawkish government has also publicly accused its foreign critics -- mainly Western nations -- of being "pro-terrorist", and argues that a number of international organisations and NGOs in Sri Lanka have been infiltrated by rebels.

Relations further soured when UN member countries rejected Sri Lanka's re-election bid to the world body's Human Rights Council in May.

Government troops were also implicated by French aid group Action Against Hunger for massacring 17 of its workers in 2005. Sri Lanka has denied the charge, but the perpetrators have not been brought to justice.

Last November, the government was forced to recall 111 soldiers on a UN peace keeping mission to Haiti over allegations that some of the troops sexually abused local girls.

International media rights groups have repeatedly pulled Colombo up for not doing enough to protect journalists from being verbally abused by senior government officials, abducted, harassed and killed. Rights groups say at least 12 media workers have been killed in Sri Lanka since 2005.

The government has also brushed off threats of foreign aid cuts due to the worsening conflict and human rights situation, and turned to countries like Iran and China for aid this year.

Sri Lanka's powerful defence secretary, Gotabhaya Rajapakse, has often accused expatriates of being "too soft" on Tiger rebels and taking up posts on the tropical island to "simply have a paid holiday".

The Tamil Tigers are fighting for a separate state in the north and east of the ethnic Sinhalese-majority island.

A UN official, who asked not to be named, said the new visa rules made it difficult for expatriates to seek extensions.

However, the foreign ministry quoted UN resident co-ordinator for Sri Lanka Neil Buhne as saying that the UN agreed to cooperate with the new rules.

Source: AFP

War is only job available in Sri Lankan village

Iyathigewewa is a classic company town. But the youth don't head off to work in the local mine or factory _ they go to war.

With no other job prospects in this impoverished, remote northern village about 27 miles south of the front lines, roughly half the men of fighting age have enlisted in the army, navy, police or other security branches.

"When we want to find a job, the easiest thing is to join the security forces," said Sisira Senaratna, 38, a 16-year police veteran who has two brothers who enlisted in the army and another in the police force.

After a quarter century of civil war between government forces and ethnic Tamil rebels, fighting is so entrenched in this Indian Ocean island it has become a career for tens of thousands seeking a path out of rural Sri Lanka's brutal poverty.

For their part, the Tamil Tiger rebels have been accused of filling their ranks by forcibly recruiting at least one member of each family in their de facto state in the north.

With the military promising to crush the rebels in the coming months, its appetite for more recruits is huge. Two weeks ago, the defense ministry sent a nationwide text message calling on "Young Patriots _ come join with our armed forces (army navy or air force) and be a part of a winning team."

Kadirage Leelawathi's entire family had already answered the call.

Her husband joined the army 20 years ago after failing to scrape a living from his tiny farm. The family lived in a clay hut with a floor made of cow dung and used kerosene lamps for light, she said. They could only afford to eat meat once a week.

"We couldn't make ends meet with three children," she said. "With the little money he earned from farming, we had a hard time even sending the kids to school."

With his army salary, they built a two bedroom concrete house with electricity, running water, a telephone, a 21-inch color TV and a 20-foot antenna piercing the sky.

Her oldest son dreamed of becoming a Buddhist monk, but grew disillusioned with the clergy and joined the navy five years ago. Her next son, seeing his father and brother serving, enlisted in the army two years ago. Seven months ago, her youngest son joined the paramilitary home guard, which protects villages in the north from rebel infiltration.

With the fighting escalating, Leelawathi said she is worried about her family: "But there's no option. What can we do?"

"If there were any other job opportunities, they wouldn't go," said her sister-in-law, Kiriyage Kamalawatee.

The economic situation was not always so bad.

In 1952, Iyathigewewa's 430 acres of farmland were enough for its 30 to 40 families. But many parents had 10 or more children, and the population explosion soon overwhelmed the village.

Parents divided their modest farms among their offspring, who subdivided them among their own children. Many of the 375 families living here now are left with slivers of land far too small to support a family.

Without the option of pushing plowshares, the youth of Iyathigewewa picked up swords.

The village's first recruit joined the army in the late 1970s. A trickle of youth followed, eventually becoming a flood.

Now, 175 of Iyathigewewa's 1,161 residents are in the security forces, where many earn a solid living of $230 to $280 a month. That money has brought relative prosperity to the village.

Its small shacks have been replaced by modest cement houses filled with kitchen appliances. Motorcycles and shiny, red three-wheeled vehicles purchased with army salaries shoot down the only paved road.

"The way the village is now, economically, that is because of the military," said Susil Premaratne, a village councilman.

But the fighting has taken its toll as well, robbing the village of 16 of its men.

Kalu Hamy's son Premasiri was killed in a land mine explosion in the eastern town of Trincomalee in 1991. Another son, Piyadesa, disappeared several years later after a battle near the rebel-held town of Kilinochchi. Her grandson was shot and killed in a 1998 ambush in the town of Vavuniya.

They joined the army in search of money and meaning for their lives, but the sacrifice wasn't worth it, the 72-year-old woman said, her voice cracking with grief.

"I would never let my children or grandchildren join the military again," she said.

Nishan Keerthiratne, 35, disagrees. With no job prospects, he joined the infantry in 1990. Two years ago, a mine hanging from a palmyrah tree exploded over his vehicle, damaging his spinal cord and paralyzing him from the chest down.

Now, he spends his days fighting bedsores as he lays on a rattan bed in his kitchen, the only room with sunlight and a breeze in his small home.

"I looked after my family, I served my country and I was able to raise our standard of living," he said. "I have no regrets."

Source: AP

29 LTTE cadres, 4 soldiers killed in Lanka clashes: Officials

At least 29 Tamil Tigers and four soldiers were killed in fierce clashes in Sri Lanka's restive northern region, officials here said on Tuesday.

Security forces gunned down 10 Tiger cadres during confrontations in Vavuniya yesterday, the Defence Ministry said.

It said another six rebels were killed and 11 injured in gun-battles in north of Janakapura and Kiriibbanwewa in the Welioya region.

A soldier was also killed and 13 others injured during the clashes in Welioya yesterday, the Defence Ministry said.

In a separate incident, an LTTE rebel was killed in a Sri Lankan Army sniper attack at Muhamalai in Jaffna yesterday while three soldiers died during a confrontation with guerrillas in Nagarkovil.

At the Mannar battle theatre, an LTTE rebel was killed in the general area of Puthukkamam, according to military reports.

In Karalmoddai, troops killed six LTTE cadres while four others were injured, the defence ministry said.

"The other attack in the same area later in the day claimed the lives of five more LTTE cadres while leaving six others wounded."

Source: Zeenews

Sri Lanka to resume talks with LTTE if it lays down arms

After a two-year gap, Sri Lanka is ready to resume talks with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) if it lays down arms.

Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa said on Saturday at the end of his two-day pilgrimage to the Tirupati Balaji temple here that the LTTE should give up terrorist activities and come to the negotiating table in the interest of the nation.

Stressing on government's intentions, he said it was the government which had been negotiating with the LTTE for the past 20 years expecting some positive outcome every time.

Negotiations were held even in Geneva, Oslo and Japan though there were instances when the LTTE walked out of the talks, he said.

Hinting that there was a change in the mood of Tamils, he said the election of a former LTTE leader as Chief Minister of the Eastern Province was an indication of this.

On India-Sri Lanka cooperation, Rajapaksa said New Delhi had always remained helpful to his country. "The relations between the two countries, I can say, are at their best." He had great admiration for the former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi and considered him as the greatest of all politicians.

Rajapaksa also talked about Indian fishermen and denied of their harassment by the Sri Lankan defence forces.

It was the LTTE which was forcibly taking away their boats and using them for the smuggling of arms. He said: "We even have reports from aerial surveillance squads to substantiate this."

The two sides had six rounds of talks after the 2002 ceasefire but the rebels pulled out in 2006. The peace process received a crushing blow in January when the government scrapped the tattered ceasefire, a move that unleashed a fresh wave of violence as the military intensified its offensive against the Tamil Tigers in the north.

Source: newkerala

Lankan navy again opens fire at Indian fishermen

For the second consecutive day, the Sri Lankan Navy allegedly opened unprovoked firing on Indian fishermen off the Nagappattinam coast, official sources said Sunday. No lives were lost in the firing. According to official sources, Lankan naval personnel opened fire on 100 fishermen in 30 boats and ripped off their nets, causing them to scamper ashore off Nagappattinam coast, 350 km from here.

On Saturday, two Indian fisherman were killed when a Sri Lankan Navy vessel allegedly opened fire on their fishing boat, a survivor of the incident said here.

The bodies of the fishermen were brought ashore after K. Murali, a fisherman injured in the shooting in the wee hours of Saturday, tipped off relatives on a mobile phone that his mates S. Vasagan and N. Narayanswamy were killed in “unprovoked” firing by the Sri Lankan Navy in the Palk Strait.

Though no lives were lost in Sunday’s firing, political leaders and activists cutting across party lines joined angry families of Saturday’s victims in demanding stringent action against the island’s navy.

AIADMK boss J. Jayalalithaa condemned the state and the central governments’ inaction and called for a compensation of Rs.500,000 for every victim’s family. Tamil Nadu Congress Committee president K.V. Thangkabalu told reporters here that he had written to Union Defence Minister A.K. Anthony, requesting the strengthening of protection to Indian citizens.

The Viduthalai Chiruthaigal Katchi announced a demonstration in Nagappattinam July 21 - ahead of a picketing protest by Communist Party of India outside the Sri Lankan Deputy High Commission slated for July 30 here.

Pattali Makkal Katchi and the Bharatiya Janata Party also in their interactions with the press here condemned the incessant attacks by the Lankan defence personnel on Indian fishermen.

The ongoing indefinite strike by Rameshwaram fishermen protesting against similar attacks continued peacefully.

Sri Lankan diplomats could not be reached for comments.

Source: thaindian

Two Indian fishermen killed in Sri Lankan navy firing

At least two Indian fishermen were killed early on Saturday when they came under fire from the Sri Lankan Navy, news reports said.

Fishermen injured in the incident informed relatives ashore by mobile phone of the 'unprovoked' attack in the Palk Straits, the IANS news agency reported.

Indian officials told the PTI news agency that the fishermen may have strayed into Sri Lanka waters, provoking the firing incident.

Instances of Indian fishermen intruding into Sri Lankan waters have often caused problems for the two governments.

India and Sri Lanka are separated by a narrow expanse of water called the Palk Straits.

Fishermen have protested against the frequent 'attacks' and demanded the Indian Coast Guard protect them.

Source: m&c