A Member of Parliament and two other politicians from Tamil Nadu were on Tuesday deported by Sri Lankan immigration authorities after they landed in Colombo to attend the funeral of LTTE leader Velupillai Prabhakaran's mother, who died on Sunday.Viduthalai Chiruthaigal Katchi leader and MP Thol Thirumavalan and others were deported back to India from the international airport in Colombo."They have been deported upon their arrival,"said a Lankan leader.
India on Thursday summoned Sri Lankan High Commissioner to seek clarification on his remarks about alleged connection between some Tamil Parliamentarians and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, after which the envoy apologised for causing "discontent" and "distress" to the MPs.
Voicing concern over the plight of civilians caught in the Sri Lankan Army offensive against the Liberation Tigers of the Tamil Eelam in rebel-held areas, India has asked Colombo to ensure their safety and security.
A batch of 95 Tamil women soldiers of the Sri Lanka army held their passing out parade at the security force Headquarters in the former Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam stronghold of Kilinochchi in the north.
'We urge you to consider recognising Tamil sovereignty as a constructive approach to end the five decades long, large-scale, and serious rights violations against the Tamil people,' the LTTE political head B Nadesan said in a letter to the UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon on Wednesday.
Tamil protesters clashed with the UK police on Tuesday as they laid siege of the British Parliament demanding an international action to stop "genocide" by the Sri Lanka forces, who are preparing to inflict a "decisive blow" to the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam guerrillas.
Up to 120,000 Sri Lankan Tamils in Canada formed a human chain in downtown Toronto, protesting against the genocide back home.
The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam has charged the United Nations with not taking effective measures to protect the life of Tamil civilians fleeing the rebel held areas and denied killing the innocent people.
The Pattali Makkal Katchi on Tuesday asked the United Nations and the international community, including India, to initiate steps for the formation of a separate Tamil nation within Sri Lanka for a lasting solution to ethnic strife as the island nation's measures for welfare of minority Tamils are not credible.'
After keeping quiet when the Lankan army mowed down Tamil civilians four years ago, M Karunanidhi has no right to shed tears over the community's plight, and certainly not at a time when Tamil Nadu is plagued with problems of its own, says A Ganesh Nadar
Asserting that Lankan military operations in Tamil-dominated northern areas were aimed at liberating the region from 'fascist and dictatorial control of LTTE terrorists' Colombo asked India not to be influenced by the 'malicious propaganda' of Tiger sympathisers.
India has been consistently calling upon Sri Lanka to fulfill its commitments to protect the interests of the Tamil community and preserve the island nation's character as a multi-ethnic and multi-religious society.
Speculation was rife at Rameswaram in Tamil Nadu on Wednesday about whether the wife of Liberation Tiger of Tamil Eelam supremo V Prabhakaran arrived here, along with a group of Sri Lankan refugees, in the face of escalating violence between the Tamil Tigers and Sri Lankan forces. Police and media personnel rushed to the Mandapam refugee camp in Rameswaram after rumours claimed that Prabhakaran's wife Madhivadhani had reached the camp early on Wednesday morning.
A perfect strategist who undertook operations against the Sri Lankan army methodically, Velupillai Prabhakaran provided Tamil translations on English language books on war strategy to his cadres to take on the government forces.
Expressing unhappiness over India's stand on the ethnic conflict in Sri Lanka, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam on Tuesday said the Tamil community expects New Delhi to extend its support to their 'national aspirations', even as it renewed its call for a ceasefire with Colombo. The Tamil Tigers also refused to lay down arms for resuming political dialogue with the Sri Lankan government to resolve the 30-year-old ethnic conflict.
The Tamil Tigers are ready for ceasefire if the Sri Lankan government is willing to halt its military offensive against them, a pro-Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam political party said on Tuesday.
The editor of a Tamil daily was picked up by the police on Thursday for "questioning" in connection with the news on last week's Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam aircraft attack on Colombo that targeted a government building.
The all-party meeting aimed at reconciliation and conferring full powers to Sri Lanka's provincial councils will be reconvened in a month after initial deliberations on Wednesday failed to yield any agreements, party officials said on Thursday.
Mahinda Rajapaksa's re-election as Sri Lankan president has come as a disappointment for the Tamil diaspora, which is still reeling from Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam rebels' defeat in the country's civil war last year. The influential community of Tamils living overseas now doesn't know about what role it should play in their homeland, the Christian Science Monitor reports.
A pro-Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam parliamentarian has underlined his party's resolve for an 'autonomous rule' for Tamils in Sri Lanka, claiming that Tamil National Alliance's support for opposition presidential candidate Sarath Fonseka was extended only after getting him to agree to those conditions.
Chitranganee Wagiswara, Sri Lanka's high commissioner to Canada, has claimed that the arrival of 492 Sri Lankan Tamils aboard the cargo ship MV Sun Sea is a 'human smuggling operation with links to the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam.'
The defence ministry said the students carried the grenade, which exploded accidentally and caused their deaths.\n
S M Krishna on Wednesday used his visit to Kilinochchi, a former Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam bastion, the first by any Indian leader in recent years, to assure the war-weary Tamils of northern Sri Lanka of India's unflinching support and help as they pick up their lives following decades of bloodshed.
"There is no pressure from the Centre. It is just your imagination," he told media persons in Chennai a day after Union Home Minister P Chidambaram met him amidst reports that Centre was not happy about a move to pass resolution at the TESO meet in Chennai next month demanding Tamil Eelam (separate Tamil nation).
He clarified that the government is not going to help the LTTE "as it is a terrorist organisation responsible for assassination of an Indian Prime Minister and not even apologised for it."
With the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam wiped out, Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa on Tuesday offered equal rights for Tamils through a political solution, but stressed that it won't be 'imported'. He said the government does not accept the military solution as final and that his aim was to provide equal rights to all communities. Rajapaksa said it was necessary to give the Tamil people the freedoms that are the right of people in all other parts of the country.
Targeting the 'support network' of the Tamil Tigers, the United States on Wednesday designated a US-based charity group as a 'front' of the banned Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam and ordered freezing of its assets. The Tamil Foundation has been designated under 'Executive Order 13224', which "targets terrorists and those providing support to terrorists or acts of terrorism," the US Department of Treasury said in a press statement.
In a major boost to the presidential campaign of former top Sri Lankan army general Sarath Fonseka, the dominant Tamil party, Tamil National Alliance on Wednesday announced support to him.
Though the situation in Tamil Nadu is normal now, there is underlying tension about the possible reactions that will be evoked once Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam chief Velupillai Prabhakaran's death is confirmed."Though the common man will not turn to violence, there are still fringe elements that are pro-LTTE, which will try to whip up the sentiments of the people. But this can be brought under control if the state is alert," security analyst B Raman said.
The demand for an independent war crimes investigations into the "massacre" during the final days of the civil war in Sri Lanka has been intensified amid outrage that Vijay Nambiar, a top aide to UN Secretary-General was aware that over 20,000 Tamils were killed by the army.
'The struggle for Tamil equality and justice for Tamils did not start with the LTTE and will not end with LTTE. I am not saying that the LTTE has come to an end.'
"It is important that they feel that they're going to be able to live a future of hope and of opportunity, that the internally displaced people that are now in camps -- there are still approximately 100,000 of them -- that they be allowed to go back to their homes," US Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asia, Robert Blake said.
According to new estimates, as many as 2057 Tamil civilians have quit the LTTE areas and sought refuge with the Sri Lankan Army in the last few days and International Red Cross has rushed in more staff to Wanni region to cope up with the challenging task of rehabilitating them.
Tamil Nationalist Movement leader, one of the most vocal supporters of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam and its supremo Velupillai Prabhakaran, speaks on the civil war raging in Sri Lanka.
'Children and their families need to return to their homes and put the pieces of their old lives back together again after the trauma of conflict,' says UNICEF official Sarah Crowe.
Sri Lanka's peace broker Norway on Wednesday held a crucial meeting with a top rebel negotiator in London. \n
With the Sri Lankan forces poised to capture the remaining strongholds of the Lankan Tigers of Tamil Eelam, India on Thursday told Colombo to ensure the safety of the Tamil civilians who are caught in the war zone in the north of the island. External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee also asked the LTTE to allow civilians in the areas held by it to cross over to the safe zones of the Sri Lankan government
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