Stockholm, (Asiantribune.com):

The Swedish Chapter of the Campaign Against Separatist Terrorism in Sri Lanka (CASTIS), has urged the Swedish Prime Minister to ban the Tamil Rehabilitation Organization in Sweden. In a letter addressed to Fredrik Reinfeldt, Prime Minister of Sweden, CASTIS has pointed out that the Tamil Rehabilitation Organization (TRO) is very active in fund raising and that they are collecting funds from each and every Tamil family in Sweden.The letter addressed to the Prime Minister of Sweden was handed over by the CASTIS representatives at the Prime Minister’s office on 24 August.

By Dr. T.C.Rajaratnam

Sunday discourse by Philip Fernando for Asian Tribune

Garrison town of Thunukkai has fallen to the armed forces, so the Asian Tribune reported. Prabhakaran now seems to linger inside a bunker waiting in vain for USA, India and someone else to intervene. There will be none. The political vacuum he succeeded in creating doomed him. He bumped off Alfred Duraiappah, A, Amirthalingham, Neelan Thiruchelvam, Lakshman Kadiragamar, Jeyaraj Fernandopulle and all the Tamil moderate leadership ruthlessly. His evil wizardry in marketing terrorism was his own booby trap that swallowed him as his options for negotiations dwindled. Now he is battered, cornered and seemed as if he is at the end of a shortened tether.

by : Kath Noble

A Sri Lankan friend of mine asked me the other day whether I believed the official version of events on the battlefield that is now so enthusiastically spread around by the Government. Miles of territory are being recaptured every week. Dozens of fighters are getting killed. Stories like these are essentially unverifiable, but they are increasingly filling the pages of newspapers and taking up ever more space on television screens. The Army insists that real progress is being made towards its goals and claims to be on the verge of winning at least the conventional part of its struggle against the LTTE. Does anybody take it seriously, he questioned.

Prime Minister Ratnasiri Wickremanayake yesterday charged several key foreign nations for questioning Sri Lanka’s human rights records despite their own human rights violations.  The Premier said that America accused Saddam Hussein of Iraq of possessing chemical weapons, who was later to be hanged despite the testimony of their own inspectors that there were no such weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.  “These are the people who are now questioning our human rights records at a time we are fighting against the world's most ruthless terrorist outfit,” the Premier said.

“I see the convincing victory by the United People’s Liberation Front (UPFA) at the elections to the North Central and Sabaragamuwa Provincial Councils held yesterday (23 August ) as a victory for all our people who love our motherland. It is an election where the country has won,” states President Mahinda Rajapaksa in a message on the results of the elections to the North Central and Sabaragamuwa Provinces held yesterday.The United People’s Liberation Front (UPFA) won a clear majority of seats in both Provincial Councils.

Given below is the text of a letter sent to the Sunday Leader by Prof. Rajiva Wijesinha, Secretary-General, Secretariat for Coordinating the Peace Process, in response to an article that appeared on August 17^th. Sections of the letter were reproduced in another article in the Sunday Leader on August 24^th, but the full letter makes clear a point the article avoids, namely the commitment of the police and the Sri Lankan state to affirm the rule of law and deal firmly with breaches of the peace arising from religious prejudice.

It was in particular unfortunate that the Sunday Leader did not publish the sections of the letter which made clear the selective way in which the original article had dealt with evidence. The new article suggested that we were merely responding to complaints from others, but this is also misleading. The questions had already been gone into at the time the American ambassador raised them, in his usual positive spirit, which is why we could respond to him so promptly.  

Conversely, since the British High Commission had raised similar questions some months back, we have kept the High Commissioner informed of the situation, but have had no response to a couple of letters. This, we hope, indicates that he is aware that the police are taking prompt action, and therefore he does not need to draw attention to any particular incident. Needless to say, it is important that any breach of the peace is brought to government attention, and failure to act should also be highlighted. But it would be more useful if this were done objectively, and to convey information, as the envoys have done, rather than in a spirit of fault finding that does not always adhere to fact.

by: Dayan Jayatilleka

Just as it did at the moment of decolonization and independence, the visible post-war moment provides a rare historic opportunity for nation building and the construction of national identity. We missed the first chance, but must not miss the second. In his nationally televised dialogue with audiences in several areas on Tuesday August 19th, President Rajapaksa, speaking in Sinhala to largely Sinhala rural crowds, pledged to hold elections to the Northern Provincial Council within a year of its liberation just as he had held election to the Eastern Provincial Council. He added that he was considering elections to the local authorities in Jaffna very much earlier.

“The people in Kilinochchi have already lost their own children and relatives because of the LTTE. The only hope that they have at present is the strong belief that the Security Forces will arrive in Kilinochchi soon, and rescue them from the grip of the LTTE.” 

( Mannar, Sri Lanka Guardian)

Commander of Task Force 1, Brigadier Shavendra Silva speaking to Sri Lanka Guardian said, “leader of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, V. Prabhakaran, has made the Tamil population prisoners in his fantasy Eelam regime. These people have sacrificed their children, property, wealth and labour for this illusionary Eelam regime”.
Our staff correspondent B. Veeman interviews Brigadier Shavendra at the War front during his visit few days ago. “Many of the soldiers are very cooperative when dealing with the people. They offer the people every possible support. Most of the time, the mistrust occurs due to the language problem and consequent communication gap,” he points out.

Here is the full text of the interview;

by B. Veeman

COLOMBO: Sri Lanka's top cricketers had a shot at Bollywood stardom when they were filmed for an upcoming movie that features some of the best players in the world.

Scenes for "Victory," a story of a small town boy who dreams of playing cricket for India, were shot in Colombo last week, with actor Harman Baweja playing against Sri Lanka's national team.
Sri Lankan stars Kumar Sangakkara, Muttiah Muralitharan and Sanath Jayasuriya were among those filmed at one of Colombo's oldest cricket venues, the Oval.