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.

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.

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.

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.

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 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.