Tamil Tiger rebels are retreating from Kilinochchi, their political headquarters in northern Sri Lanka, a senior official has said.

Keheliya Rambukwella, a defence spokesman, said on Wednesday that government troops were on "the outskirts" of Kilinochchi after days of fierce fighting.

He said the rebels "appeared to have abandoned their defences".

The battle for Kilinochchi started in early September. 

Fighting has intensified in the past two weeks since the army seized the entire western coast from the rebels for the first time since 1993.

"They are in retreat, they are moving out," said Rambukwella, who is also a government minister. "Their presence is not felt."

MUMBAI, India – A trickle of bodies and hostages emerged from a luxury hotel Thursday as Indian commandoes tried to free people trapped by suspected Muslim militants who attacked at least 10 targets in India's financial capital of Mumbai, killing 101 people. 

More than 300 were also wounded in the highly coordinated attacks Wednesday night by bands of gunmen who invaded two five star hotels, a popular restaurant, a crowded train station, a Jewish center and at least five other sites, armed with assault rifles, hand grenades and explosives.

 A previously unknown Islamic militant group claimed responsibility for the carnage, the latest in a series of nationwide terror attacks over the past three years that have dented India's image as an industrious nation galloping toward prosperity.

Some people really seem to delight in recounting our problems. Instead of appreciating progress, they bash us over the head with still to be obtained goals. And at considerable length. The situation is never improving in their eyes. We are either already bad or getting a lot worse, and no practical suggestions are offered to help us recover. Rhetorical flourishes are the only things we are given by these characters. They love nothing better than wallowing in a bit of good old misery. 

Human Rights Watch demonstrates this syndrome perfectly in its latest press release on the situation in the Eastern Province. To summarise, life is bad and blame lies with the Government.

B. Muralidhar Reddy

Douglas Devananda, Social Welfare Minister in the Mahinda Rajapaksa government and leader of the Eelam People’s Democratic Party (EPDP), has clear views on the current military and political situation in Sri Lanka and the humanitarian crisis triggered by the ongoing war between the Sri Lankan Army and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). Here are excerpts from an interview he gave The Hindu.

For years after the JVP leader Rohana Wijeweera unleashed a Molotov-style cocktail revolution in 1971 in a futile attempt to grab power but was thwarted under the leadership of Sirimavo Bandaranaike and Felix Reginald Dias Bandaranaike, and the subsequent political developments in Sri Lanka, which showed some ascendancy of the political power of the JVP, mainly due to its campaign they carried out against the Tamil political groups including Thondaman and then the LTTE, the people of Sri Lanka had always believed that the arch enemy of the LTTE was not the Government but the JVP.

COLOMBO (AFP) – Helicopter gunships attacked Tamil Tiger rebel positions in northern Sri Lanka as battles shifted onto a key highway leading to the rebels' political capital, the defence ministry said.

Helicopters were deployed to pound rebel bunkers that make up the western defences of the town of Kilinochchi, the political headquarters of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), the ministry said.

"Sri Lanka army offensive divisions... are now marching towards Kilinochchi built up in three frontiers," the ministry said. "Pitched battles are going on."

 One of the columns was marching on Kilinochchi from the southern flank and heavy fighting raged along the main A-9 highway that runs through the six-kilometre (four-mile) length of the town, the ministry said.

Protests from the whole caboodle of INGOs and NGOs against the Vanni offensive and the government's order that they shift to Vavuniya stemmed more from a fear of being exposed for their sordid operations than from a genuine concern for civilians. Now that more and more areas where many INGOs had been operating for about two decades are being cleared, damning evidence is surfacing that they had done precious little for people. They poured billions of rupees and moved hundreds of vehicles into those areas claiming to improve the people's lot. But, where has all the money gone? Dirt tracks and tumbled down buildings bear testimony to the fact that INGO and NGO funds did reach anywhere but the grassroots.

The billion rupees question is: What were the worthy members of the victim industry doing in that terrain for so long busting so much of money?Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa has asked the captains of the victim industry to explain what they had been doing in the Vanni before their recent exit. He has suggested that those outfits, save the UN agencies and the ICRC, be thrown out of the country. One may agree with him but let no attempt be made to throw the baby out with the bathwater.

The Sri Lanka Government categorically rejects the assertion made by Amnesty International (AI) in its latest report that it is carrying out a policy of blocking humanitarian aid needed for the people at present displaced in the Wanni region, states a spokesman for the Presidential Secretariat.

It is correct that a large proportion of the civilian population of the Wanni region who live in locations still controlled by the terrorists of the LTTE are undergoing considerable hardship and suffering due to the rigid policies of the LTTE of preventing the free movement of civilians and making use of them as human shields against the advancing forces of humanitarian liberation of the Sri Lanka Government.

The Government is fully aware of the numbers of persons who need assistance and it is satisfied that the maximum assistance is being provided to these people, under the prevailing conditions, especially the difficulties caused by the intransigence and brutality of the LTTE, with regard to the very people it claims to represent and allegedly liberate.

Colombo, (IANS): The long drawn out civil war in Sri Lanka has reached a crucial phase with reports of the fighting spirit of the Tamil Tigers said to be at an 'all time low' after the fall of two of their strongholds even as government troops march in on the rebels' political capital Kilinochchi.

The troops last week captured the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) bastions of Pooneryn and Mankulam which they had held for a decade.Retired navy commander and chief of defence staff (CDS) Admiral Daya Sandagiri said the capture of Pooneryn 'has virtually neutralized the LTTE threat to the troops stationed in the Jaffna peninsula while the capture of Mankulam has mounted pressure on the LTTE.'The capture of Pooneryn has now given the military the necessary land route access to Jaffna. Such a land route is vital for ongoing military operation in terms of logistic supply and casualty evacuation,' Admiral Sandagiri told IANS.

Sri Lanka’s representative Mr. Lalith Weeratunga, Secretary to the President, was yesterday (19) elected Chairman of the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Committee of ESCAP – the Economic & Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific.

The unanimous election took place at the ESCAP meeting in Bangkok which opened Tuesday (18) bringing together ICT experts and policy makers from governments, the academia, UN and other international agencies, and the private sector.

This election signals the view in ESCAP of Sri Lanka’s considerable progress in ICT development, where computer literacy has increased from 5 per cent to nearly 25 per cent in the past three years, with the emphasis placed on ICT development by President Mahinda Rajapaksa.

The ICT Committee of ESCAP monitors the progress made at the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) for Asia and the Pacific.

The statement by Amnesty International (AI) issued on Wednesday, 19 November, entitled “Sri Lankan Government Must Act Now to Protect 300,000 Displaced” is unfortunately yet another attempt to distort the factual situation pertaining to the conditions in which civilians in the north of Sri Lanka find themselves at present.

Regrettably, AI has failed to present an objective analysis of the challenges and successes of the Sri Lankan Government in addressing the needs of Sri Lankan persons affected by the conflict. The AI account is littered with misleading innuendo compounded by outright falsehood and, upon a holistic reading of their report, it becomes clear that the intent of the report is to present a skewed picture unfavourable to the lawfully elected and popularly mandated Government of Sri Lanka.

Douglas Devananda, a veteran of the Tamil armed struggle is well known to all Sri Lankans as the politician who has survived the most number of LTTE assassination attempts.

In this interview, he speaks to C.A. Chandraprema on the liberation of Pooneryn, the conflict between Karuna and Pillaiyan in the east, and the question of rehabilitating Tamil youth who had taken up arms against the state, and had never known what normal life was like.

By Jacinta Cruz, Los Angeles, California

The following photographs were sent to us to show how the Armed Forces are treating the helpless LTTE fighters who had been injured in the civil war and been abandoned to their fate. If people in Wanni are hiding, then they are hiding from the Tigers and also to enable the Armed Forces to take over areas held by the LTTE.

Those LTTE Diaspora supporters living in the lap of luxury in the west are fighting a proxy war that kills many innocent people forced into the frontiers of the war by Pol Pot Prabhakaran.

There are people who still believe that Prabhakaran is a hocus pocus magician who will achieve Eelam. How many of them are aware that the people of Wanni cannot wait anymore for their liberation from the LTTE?

Civilians trapped in the Wanni have begun to move into government controlled areas as fighting has intensified. Here a sailor is seen carrying a baby while her mother looks on. The mother and baby had crossed into Jaffna and sought protection with the Navy.

Pic by Ranjith Jayasundara

(Courtesy : Daily Mirror )

By Dayan Jayatilleka

‘A little less conversation, a little more action’ should be the global theme.

The first film I was taken to – even before I began schooling-- was an Elvis movie, so I welcome the news that the best performing single in the history of the US charts is Elvis Presley’s “A Little Less Conversation A Little More Action.” Not only would this hold as regards the global economic crisis, a slightly revised version would constitute sound advice as regards terrorism in the volatile South Asian region: “A little less of double standards, a little more action”.

by Kath Noble

Foolish statements about minority communities are being made on an impressively regular basis at the moment, despite the fact that such utterances invariably provoke an outcry and then generate a lot of bad publicity for this country. Many end up being withdrawn or at least clarified to explain how the speaker was deliberately or otherwise misinterpreted, but they seem to just keep on coming. Government has to monitor comments by those in positions of influence, even though it has plenty of other things to be getting on with.Champika Ranawaka stirred things up most recently. He claimed in an interview with another newspaper that minority communities were making what he called undue demands. This was appalling ingratitude for the compassion shown in allowing them to settle here in the first place, he apparently said.

Jaffna: THE Army victory over POONERYN received a mammoth recognition in the JAFFNA peninsula when several hundreds of jubilant civilians on Monday (17) took to streets waving National Flags and shouting slogans against Tiger terrorists.  Cheering people lined up along JAFFNA town streets to watch the fleet of three-wheelers with fluttering National Flags atop and marching civilians in glee. Many youngsters while dancing to the tunes of base drums requested the troops to capture KILINOCHCHI as early as possible without letting Tigers to cripple normalcy in other areas of the country.  

Some energetic young men heralded the victory bursting fire-crackers as the procession with three-wheelers and civilians wended its way across JAFFNA streets. Police had to divert traffic on congested roads as the crowd and the vehicles joining the procession swelled.    

[COLOMBO, SinhalaNet] His Excellency Mahinda Rajapaksa, President of Sri Lanka and Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces has congratulated the valiant soldiers who liberated the Poonaryn area from terrorist clutches on Nov 15.

Addressing the nation through the state media, President Rajapaksa declared the Army's victory at Pooneryn and congratulated the soldiers. He also expressed his gratitude to the citizens of the country who have been sharing his vision to rid the country of terrorism and to free the next generation from the horrors of war.