Category: Politics

COLOMBO, Sept 20, 2006 (AFP) – Three people were shot dead by unidentified gunmen in northeast Sri Lanka, police said Wednesday, and a curfew was put in place in a nearby town following an earlier massacre of 10 Muslim men.Tamil rebels have waged a drawn-out insurgency for a separate ethnic homeland in Sri Lanka, a […]

POTTUVIL, Sept 18 (AFP) – The bodies of 10 Muslim men found hacked to death were buried in the farming village of Pottuvil on Monday as the Tamil Tiger rebels and Sri Lankan forces blamed each other for the massacre.The victims, mostly between 20 and 27 years old, were brought to the Jumma Mosque in […]

COLOMBO, Sept 19, 2006 (AFP) – Sri Lankan jets bombed suspected Tamil Tiger targets in the island’s east Tuesday, officials said, while rebel mortars killed four soldiers escorting journalists in the embattled Jaffna peninsula. Israeli-made Kfir war planes bombed positions of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in the district of Batticaloa, the government’s […]

COLOMBO, Sept 19, 2006 (AFP) – A ship suspected of ferrying weapons to Tamil rebels that was sunk by the Sri Lankan military originated in Indonesia and more vessels may be on the way, a government minister said Tuesday. The ship was sunk Sunday off Sri Lanka’s east coast by naval ships and aircraft after […]

NEW YORK, Sept 19, 2006 (AFP) – Sri Lanka’s government and Tamil Tiger rebels have stepped up killings of civilians in a surge of violence this year that has shattered gains made under a 2002 ceasefire, a leading rights group said Tuesday. More than 60,000 people have been killed in Sri Lanka’s Tamil separatist conflict […]

COLOMBO, Sept 18, 2006 (AFP) – The bodies of 11 Muslim men hacked to death were found in eastern Sri Lanka Monday, police said as Tamil Tiger rebels and government forces blamed each other for the massacre. The victims were labourers working on an irrigation project in the eastern Ampara district and had been killed […]

COLOMBO, Sept 17, 2006 (AFP) – Sri Lanka’s navy gunboats and war planes bombed a suspected Tamil Tiger arms ship Sunday, the defence ministry said, despite efforts by peace broker Norway to hold talks to uphold a truce.The defence ministry said in a statement that naval craft called for air support after the unnamed vessel […]

WASHINGTON, Sept 16 (AFP) – The United States on Friday classified six Asian countries as religious freedom violators, aside from China, Myanmar, North Korea and Vietnam already blacklisted as worst offenders in the region. Afghanistan, Brunei, India, Laos, Pakistan and Sri Lanka were included in a “significant” list of violators of religious freedom in the […]

Sept 16, 2006 (AFP) – Suspected Tamil Tiger rebels shot dead three civilians and a government soldier in separate incidents, the defence ministry said Saturday.The Tamil rebels are fighting for an independent homeland for the Tamil minority. More than 60,000 people have been killed in Sri Lanka’s bitter ethnic conflict since 1972.Two civilians were killed […]

TRINCOMALEE, Sri Lanka, Sept 15, 2006 (AFP) – Government forces shelled Tamil Tiger positions in northeastern Sri Lanka Friday as suspected guerrillas shot dead four civillians in renewed unrest on the island, officials said. Meanwhile, four civilians have been shot dead in separate incidents in Jaffna peninsula and in the neighbouring districts of Vavuniya and […]

COLOMBO, Sept 14, 2006 (AFP) – Sri Lanka appears to be dominating Tamil separatists on the battlefield, but a dwindling war chest may have forced it to enter peace talks ordered by foreign donors, analysts and diplomats say. “There is no doubt that the military enjoys the upper hand in current battles,” says retired air […]

VAVUNIYA, Sri Lanka, Sept 14, 2006 (AFP) – At least 10 people have died in fresh violence in Sri Lanka, officials said Thursday, despite an agreement among the island’s warring parties to talk peace. Three migrant workers from Sri Lanka’s majority Sinhalese community were gunned down in an open field in the town of Vavuniya, […]