The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Elam led by its supremo V Prabhakaran had aspired to carve out a big Tamil elam state extending from near Colombo to the southern part of Sri Lanka, the island nation's top defence official has said.
Menon, who arrived in Colombo by a special flight just after midnight on Thursday night, is scheduled to meet President Mahinda Rajapaksa and his younger brothers Basil Rajapaksa, Minister of Economic development; and Gotabhaya Rajapaksa, Defence Secretary, officials said.
Political analysts said Sirisena's move to install Rajapaksa as the prime minister could lead to a constitutional crisis as the 19th amendment to the Constitution would not allow the sacking of Wickremesinghe as the premier without a majority.
Bruce Fein, a former US deputy assistant attorney general in the Reagan Administration, has filed a 12-count indictment against Sri Lanka's defense secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa and the country's army commander Lieutenant General Sarath Fonseka, for perpetrating genocide against Tamil civilians with US Attorney General Eric Holder and the Department of Justice.
Dravida Munnetra Kazhagamchief M Karunanidhi on Wednesday said Sri Lanka's Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa's statement -- that Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam's cadres were still trying very hard to revive the conflict -- was aimed at diverting the world's attention from the alleged human rights violations in the island republic.
For the first time Sri Lanka on Monday admitted that civilian deaths did occur during the final phase of the country's three decade-long civil war against Tamil rebels but said it was "impossible" to avoid deaths in a military campaign against a ruthless opponent.
A Sri Lankan military court of inquiry has given a clean chit to the army and ruled that civilian casualties in the last stage of the military operations "might have occurred due to unlawful acts of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam ".
The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam maintains a hostile approach towards the exodus of civilians from the Wanni region, and the casualties caused by it is under-reported, Sri Lankan government told a high-level United Nations delegation on Monday.
Seeking to give a fillip to bilateral military ties, army chief General V K Singh is set to undertake a five-day visit to Sri Lanka from Sunday to discuss defence cooperation.
The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam could be attempting to revive the organisation amid efforts by the defeated terror group to rescue hardcore cadres housed in government-run refugee camps for Tamil civilians in Sri Lanka's northern Vavuniya district, a top minister has said.Defence Minister Gotabhaya Rajapaksa said that though the LTTE had been military crushed, attempts were being made to rescue hardcore fighters, who are living in the refuge camps in the Vavuniya region.
Sri Lanka, which is poised to capture the remaining strongholds of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, has rejected the plea of the United States-led donor countries for a temporary 'no-fire period' in the island's north, saying this would be detrimental in efforts to wipe out terrorism from its soil.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi congratulated Rajapaksa and said he looks forward to further deepen relations between the two nations.
National Security Advisor Shivshankar Menon arrived in Colombo on Monday to hold crucial talks on the controversial 13th amendment on devolution of power in the Tamil-dominated northern province and a trilateral maritime security treaty with Sri Lanka and the Maldives.
'The Rajapaksas have been in active politics for decades and survived many challenges, but they seem to have misread this one.'
Maithripala Sirisena was considered so meek and self-effacing that he appeared no threat to anyone. What a mistake his rivals made!
Sri Lanka's new government on Sunday said it will probe whether longtime president Mahinda Rajapaksa sought military help to cling to power after he realised that he had lost the closely contested election.
The country has a fiendishly complicated electoral system that is a combination of population-based proportional representation and party-based national lists, says Aditi Phadnis
Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena will visit India on his maiden foreign trip next month even as he ordered the release of all Indian fishermen in custody in Colombo as a goodwill gesture on the first day in office.
Sri Lanka's Chief of Naval Staff, Vice Admiral Jayantha Perera on Monday allayed India's fears on increasing Chinese military presence in the island nation, as he categorically stated that his nation will never compromise on India's national security or for that matter of any other country.
Sri Lankans on Thursday voted in large numbers in the bitterly contested presidential election in which incumbent Mahinda Rajapaksa is seeking a record third term against his friend-turned-foe Maithripala Sirisena, with an unusually high voter turnout in Tamil and Muslim areas.
Speaker Karu Jayasuriya questioned the president's decision to suspend parliament till November 16, saying it will have "serious and undesirable" consequences on the country.
Sri Lankan Army General Sarath Fonseka, who presided over the military offensive on the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, has been asked by the United States authorities to testify before them against Lankan Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapakse over allegations of widespread human rights abuse during the war.
Polls opened at 7 am local time and would close at 5 pm with some 12,845 polling stations being set up throughout the country for 15.9 million voters, who will choose a successor to President Maithripala Sirisina.
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