"Sri Lanka says its forces kill 32 Tamil rebels
Sri Lankan soldiers assailed the last slice of land still controlled by ethnic Tamil separatists, killing at least 32 rebels, the defense ministry said Saturday....
Concern is mounting for the fate of the civilians caught up in the fighting. The government has rejected calls from international aid groups for a cease-fire, saying it is on the verge of victory, while the rebels have ruled out any mass evacuation of civilians -- fueling suspicion that they are using them as a human shield.
The U.N. says thousands of innocents have been killed or wounded in recent fighting and the survivors are dangerously short of food, drinking water and medical supplies. The top government health official in the rebel pocket told The Associated Press on Thursday that 13 people -- most of them elderly -- had died from starvation in the previous week.
However, the Sri Lankan government said in a statement Saturday that the exact cause of death was unknown because none of the 13 bodies had undergone a post-mortem examination. It said the government had taken "all possible measures" to provide food and medicines to civilians in the rebel pocket, but gave no specifics.
Amnesty International said continued restrictions on the Sri Lankan media made it impossible to get an impartial picture of what was happening in the country....
"Without a free media able to express alternative views and offer the opportunity for public scrutiny, abuses can flourish under a veil of secrecy and denial," Yolanda Foster, Amnesty's Sri Lanka researcher, told a vigil in London to mark a prominent Sri Lankan journalist's first year in prison.
The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam have fought since 1983 for an independent state for the Tamil minority, which suffered decades of marginalization at the hands of governments dominated by the Sinhalese majority. More than 70,000 people have been killed in the fighting. --more--"
Notice how the MSM always leaves the religious component out of the equation -- as well as the majority of victims being Tamils?
Sri Lankan Slaughter Continues as World is Silent
