Tag: Sri Lanka

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) – 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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

COLOMBO, Nov 26 (AFP) – Sri Lankan security forces went on high alert Sunday, officials said, as Tamil Tiger rebels remembered 18,742 comrades killed in their decades-long campaign for a separate homeland.More than 3,400 people have been killed in an upsurge in violence in the past year in Sri Lanka, where over 60,000 have died […]