by S. L. Gunasekara

TamilNet and other like minded web-sites are replete with harrowing stories, some authored by the Tigers themselves, of starvation among Tamil Civilians in the `Safe Zone’ to whom the Government has been supplying food and drugs. What is significant in these horror stories is that no one, not even the Tigers, say that a single Tiger is starving. If there is any truth in these stories, that can only be if the Tigers are robbing the Tamil Civilians of the food and drugs sent to them for their own purposes, thereby forcing those Civilians to starve.

Statement of Prof. Rajiva Wijesinha, Secretary General of the Sri Lankan Peace Secretariat, during the General Debate at the Durban Review Conference in Geneva, April 23^rd  2009

Mr. President, Sri Lanka congratulates you and those who worked so hard to develop this process of discussion and analysis, since we are clearly dealing here with a continuing problem for the world. I will not use the term international community, for that too has become a victim of racism, inasmuch as it is used to define a rag tag and bobtail of a few countries, the non-governmental organizations they fund and the press that privileges them.

By Jamila Najmuddin

The government yesterday said the international community had extended overwhelming humanitarian support to Sri Lanka and rejected claims by a top US official that the world was disappointed with efforts by the government to end the war.

The United Nations Security Council has demanded LTTE terrorists to renounce violence, lay down arms and to stop using civilians as human shield immediately.  

"The LTTE is a terrorist organization and should be condemned for its use of civilian as a human shield. The LTTE should immediately lay down arms and renounce its terror tactics", said Ambassador Claude Heller, the President of the UN Security Council summing up the views expressed by the Members of the Security Council at an informal briefing on Wednesday (April 22).

Twice the size of Central Park. That was the answer U.N. humanitarian chief John Holmes gave in early April when asked how large the area was where more than 100,000 civilians were trapped with bloody battles raging around them in northern Sri Lanka. This week, that small area was reduced by a quarter when government forces gained control of a 3-km stretch of the 12-km coastal sliver that had once been a stronghold of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).

By: Walter Jayawardhana 

India said the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) should stop its barbaric acts to hold civilians leaving from its last foothold in Sri Lanka. 

India also expressed its discontentment over the continued killings of innocent Tamils in Sri Lanka. The statement was released after Prime Minister Manmohan Singh reviewed the current situation in the island nation.

By Kath Noble

One of the letters I received in response to my piece in The Island the other day about Western perceptions of the conflict in Sri Lanka was rather brief in its criticism. In fact, I am only assuming that it was supposed to be criticism, because the message did not specify. It was simply a list of websites. There was the Tamil Youth Organisation, a number of Tamil expatriate groups from Switzerland, and the website that hosts those videos the British Parliamentarians have been watching of late.

By C. Bryson Hull and Ranga Sirilal 

COLOMBO (Reuters) – Thousands more civilians surged out of Sri Lanka's war zone on Wednesday while soldiers and Tamil Tiger rebels fought the apparent endgame of Asia's longest-running war despite calls to protect those still trapped.

Former LTTE media spokesman and media coordinator Daya Master has just surrendered to the army along with George, the translator of former political head Thamilchelvan, military sources confirmed. They had reportedly come to the cleared areas along with fleeing civilians.

The request by British Prime Minister Gordon Brown for a pause in military action was deemed as unnecessary by President Mahinda Rajapaksa considering the unexpected exodus of 35,000 civilians to the cleared areas from the No Fire Zone (NFZ). This was said by President Rajapaksa during a telephone conversation initiated by the British Prime Minister, yesterday – April 20.

Our record of civilian casualties is the best in the world of forces fighting terror: Minister Bathiudeen says at the opening ceremony 

A Photographic Exhibition titled Victims of the War was inaugurated on 21 April 2009 by Hon. Rishad Bathiudeen, Minister of Resettlement and Disaster Relief Services at the Centre International de Conferences Geneve (CICG) in Geneva, Switzerland. The exhibition is being held from 21^st to 24^th April and is organised by the Media Unit of the Presidential Secretariat and the Permanent Mission of Sri Lanka to the United Nations in Geneva.

Addressing the widely publicized UN world conference against racism and racial discrimination under the theme “United against Racism, Unity and Justice for all”, currently underway in Geneva, Sri Lanka’s most senior ethnic Tamil Cabinet Minister said that Sri Lanka’s President Rajapakse was firmly committed to the full implementation of the 13th Amendment to the Constitution which gives substantive autonomy to the provinces. He also called upon the international community to put pressure on the LTTE to allow the civilians in its captivity to leave unconditionally.

Given below is the full text of the Address by Hon Douglas Devananda, Minister of Social Welfare of Sri Lanka at the Durban Review Conference:

B. Muralidhar Reddy  The distance was only about 1.5 km, but it was a journey fraught with risks 

Photos: AFP/Sri Lanka Defence Forces

COLOMBO: The old and the young, men and women and children, all ran alike, carrying on their heads and shoulders whatever they could, towards the Sri Lanka military checkpoint from the no fire zone (NFZ) where they were being held hostage at gunpoint by a group of Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam leaders and cadres led by Velupillai Prabakaran.

By Desmond Butler  

WASHINGTON (AP) — The State Department released satellite imagery Tuesday of tens of thousands of Sri Lankan civilians squeezed into the last small strip of land controlled by Tamil Tiger rebels.

The State Department said that a recent image shows about 25,000 tents packed into a coastal strip about 8 square miles large. Based on the number of tents, they estimate that about 125,000 people were in the conflict zone before about 60,000 civilians escaped over the last two days. 

New Delhi: The LTTE is "a terrorist organization" and its chief Vellupillai Prabhakaran "a proclaimed offender", Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said yesterday. 

He was clarifying the Congress position two days after Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi's contentious remark about the LTTE Chief being a "friend".

The 58 Division troops backed by the Commando and Special Forces troops yesterday continued their humanitarian operation to rescue the civilians trapped inside the Safe Zone after reaching the Eastern beachfront dividing the Safe Zone into two enabling more civilians to arrive into the military controlled areas as huge influx of civilians continued till yesterday evening.

Indo Asian News Service  

 Amethi: Congress president Sonia Gandhi's daughter Priyanka Gandhi Tuesday said that India cannot forgive LTTE chief Velupillai Prabhakaran for her father's assassination in 1991, but she personally does not hate him.

LTTE fails to meet Lanka deadline, army closes in

Colombo: The rebels of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam failed to meet the Tuesday noon deadline set by Colombo to surrender, as the terror outfit faces an unprecedented military thrust in its last stronghold in Sri Lanka's north.

By-Leel Pathirana - For Asian Tribune

Singapore, 18 April, (Asiantribune.com): "Sri Lanka has Professor Rohan Gunaratna, Head of the International Center for Political Violence, Terrorism Research and security Studies Nanyang Technology University in Singapore. become a living laboratory on how to and how not to fight terrorism. Governments from around the world have started to study the Sri Lankan case. Western and other military, law enforcement security and intelligence services are today consulting the Sri Lankan government on how they reduced the LTTE power from a formidable to a mediocre organization. Sri Lanka provides the best case study of how to dismantle a terrorist group militarily. Sri Lanka still needs to develop its core competencies to fight LTTE's domestic and foreign support base politically, economically and diplomatically. Until then the conflict will subsist and may even revive, said Prof: Rohan Gunaratna.

The last week has seen what amount to pleas to save the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam reach hysterical levels. Whilst much of this was couched initially in language suggesting concern not for the Tigers, but for the civilians trapped by the Tigers, gradually the mask slipped, and the true colours of the interventionists showed themselves.