Category: Politics
Sri Lanka grants amnesty to military deserters
June 7, 2009 (AFP) – Sri Lanka’s president on Sunday marked a key Buddhist celebration by granting a pardon to 585 jailed military deserters, officials said. In 2003, the government moved to legally discharge from the security forces 51,000 deserters. Tens of thousands were killed in Sri Lanka’s decades-old Tamil separatist conflict. The pardon applied […]
Sri Lankan FM denies 20,000 Tamils killed in final onslaught: report
LONDON, June 6, 2009 (AFP) – Sri Lanka’s Foreign Minister Rohitha Bogollagama has denied claims that more than 20,000 Tamil civilians were killed during the government’s final onslaught against rebels, a report said Saturday. Bogollagama told The Times that the newspaper was wrong to report last week that so many civilians had died in the […]
Sri Lanka gets Indian support in human rights battle
June 05, 2009 (LBO) – India has rapped UN human rights commissioner Navi Pillai saying she should not abuse her position to pursue hidden agendas against Sri Lanka.Ambassador Gopinath Achamkulangare of India said in a statement India believes that the commissioner will accept the outcome the special session on Sri Lanka without taking a position […]
Sri Lanka seizes ship with supplies for war-hit civilians
June 4, 2009 (AFP) – Sri Lanka’s navy Thursday seized a foreign-owned ship loaded with medical, food and other supplies for war-hit civilians, saying the vessel had entered its territorial waters illegally.The supplies, arranged by supporters of the Tamil rebel cause, were loaded onto a ship in the English port of Ipswich in April — […]
Sri Lanka needs new phase in international diplomacy: President
June 3, 2009 (LBO) – Sri Lanka needs a new diplomatic drive to win in the international arena, after defeating terrorism in the country, President Mahinda Rajapaksa said in a nationally televised address. “Many countries have helped us,” President Rajapaksa said. “We appreciate it very much. “The hearts of our people will remember it.” Government […]
Sri Lankan media rights activist recovers after attack
June 2, 2009 (AFP) – A Sri Lankan journalist was recovering in hospital Tuesday after being beaten up near the capital Colombo as a rights group expressed renewed concern for the safety of the island’s media. Poddala Jayantha, secretary of the Sri Lanka Working Journalists’ Association, was abducted near his home and severely attacked with […]
UN did not underestimate Sri Lanka death toll: Ban
UNITED NATIONS, June 1, 2009 (AFP) – UN chief Ban Ki-moon on Monday categorically rejected allegations the world body had deliberately underestimated the death toll in the ethnic conflict in Sri Lanka.“I categorically reject — repeat categorically — any suggestion that the United Nations has deliberately underestimated any figures,” he told the UN General Assembly. […]
Sri Lanka rejects rights probe
May 31, 2009 (AFP) – Sri Lanka on Sunday rejected growing calls to probe human rights violations amid allegations that thousands of civilians perished in the final battle against Tamil separatists. A report in the Times of London newspaper on Friday citing confidential UN reports said that more than 20,000 non-combatants were killed by Sri […]
Sri Lankan media rights activist beaten: colleagues
June 1, 2009 (AFP) – A Sri Lankan media rights activist was hospitalised Monday after being beaten by unidentified attackers near the capital Colombo, a doctor and journalists said.Poddala Jayantha, secretary of the Sri Lanka Working Journalists’ Association, was abducted near his home and was severely attacked with sticks and later dumped in a suburb […]
‘ global network
SINGAPORE, May 31, 2009 (AFP) – Sri Lanka appealed Sunday for international support in dismantling the global political network of the Tamil Tiger rebels after declaring a full military victory over the separatist movement. Foreign Minister Rohitha Bogollagama told a high-level security forum in Singapore that Colombo needed help in disabling the Tigers’ “powerful political […]
Amnesty calls for probe of Sri Lanka civilian deaths
May 30, 2009 (AFP) – Amnesty International called Saturday for an independent probe into the number of civilians killed in the final weeks of Sri Lanka’s civil war and also urged the UN to reveal its own estimates. The call by the rights group followed a report in the Times of London newspaper on Friday […]
Obama names US ambassadors to Sri Lanka, Japan, India
WASHINGTON, May 28, 2009 (AFP) – President Barack Obama on Wednesday named US ambassadors to Japan, India and Sri Lanka, amid heightened tension in Asia over North Korea’s nuclear tests, unrest in Pakistan and ethnic tension in Sri Lanka. Obama named longtime technology-focused lawyer John Roos as US ambassador to Japan, and named Democratic former […]