Category: Politics

Nov 28, 2006 (AFP) – Sri Lanka Tuesday offered fresh talks with Tamil Tigers to avert a return to all-out civil war as the top guerrilla leader wrote off the Norwegian-backed peace process.President Mahinda Rajapakse, currently visiting India, said he was ready to have direct talks with Velupillai Prabhakaran, the elusive leader of the Liberation […]

Nov 28, 2006 (AFP) – Sri Lanka must stop helping a pro-government Tamil rebel faction to recruit child soldiers, a human rights group warned Tuesday.The New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) renewed charges that government security forces were assisting the “Karuna” breakaway group to recruit boys and girls as combatants. HRW said its investigations supported […]

HANOI, Nov 28, 2006 (AFP) – Sri Lanka’s prime minister Tuesday said peace talks with Tamil Tigers will go on and urged the guerrillas to stop “terrorism” a day after the rebel leader said the minority must have an independent state.“There is terrorism and there is negotiations,” said Prime Minister Ratnasiri Wickramanayaka, speaking during a […]

Nov 28, 2006 (AFP) – A solemn vow by the veteran Tamil rebel leader that his people will now pursue their own independent state has set the stage for a return to full-scale war in Sri Lanka, analysts said Tuesday.“He has gone for a declaration of war,” former Tamil separatist turned politician Dharmalingam Sithadthan told […]

OSLO, Nov 28, 2006 (AFP) – Norway on Tuesday said that while it did not see the need for new initiatives, it would remain in contact with both the Sri Lankan government and the Tamil Tigers following the rebel leader’s declaration that the peace process was defunct.“We are prepared to assist the parties, but we […]

Nov 28, 2006 (AFP) – The Sri Lankan government has written to peace broker Norway to ask if the island’s peace process is over after Tamil rebels declared it defunct, a spokesman said Tuesday.“We want a clarification from the Norwegians if the peace process is still on,” said defence spokesman Keheliya Rambukwella. The demand was […]

Nov 27, 2006 (AFP) – Sri Lanka’s navy Monday sank a suspected Tamil rebel trawler off the island’s northwest coast, killing at least four people on board, a defence ministry spokesman said.A patrolling “fast attack” naval craft came under fire from the vessel 50 nautical miles (92 kilometres) north of Udappuwa, he said. “We returned […]

Nov 27, 2006 (AFP) – Unidentified gunmen shot dead three local employees of a Japanese cement company in north-eastern Sri Lanka on Monday as Tamil Tiger rebels and security forces traded artillery fire, police said.The ethnic separatist conflict has claimed at least 60,000 lives since it began in 1972.The three Tamils working for the Mitsui […]

Nov 27, 2006 (AFP) – Tamil Tiger supremo Velupillai Prabhakaran was to deliver a keenly-awaited address Monday to Sri Lanka’s embattled Tamil people that will help shape the course of the island’s troubled peace process.The defence ministry reports 2,018 Tiger rebels killed in the past year. His speech will come one year after he warned […]

Nov 27, 2006 (AFP) – The Tamil minority of Sri Lanka must have their own independent state, rebel chief Velupillai Prabhakaran declared Monday, effectively ending the island’s peace process.In his annual policy speech, delivered from a secret hideout, the Tamil Tiger leader accused the Colombo government of waging military and economic war against Tamils and […]

COLOMBO, Nov 26 (AFP) – Sri Lanka’s elusive Tamil Tiger supremo marks his 52nd birthday Sunday with a self-imposed deadline to decide the course of Asia’s longest-running ethnic conflict.The TNA is the third largest group in the 225-member assembly and their votes would be crucial for any political deal to end separatist violence, which has […]

NEW DELHI, Nov 26, 2006 (AFP) – The visiting Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapakse Sunday sounded out India on joint patrolling of their maritime border in a bid to halt smuggling and cross-border terrorism.Rajapakse, who began a five-day working visit to India Sunday, told reporters he planned to talk to Indian leaders about strengthening patrols […]