Also see: Sri Lanka: Case Study in MSM Propaganda
"Sri Lanka says fighting kills 34 rebels" by Associated Press | April 3, 2009
COLOMBO, Sri Lanka - Sri Lankan troops killed 34 Tamil Tiger separatist rebels yesterday during fierce fighting in the island's north in a drive to end a 25-year-old civil war, the military said.
Troops collected the bodies of 31 rebels after intense clashes near Puthukkudiyiruppu, the last township held by the Tamil Tigers inside a tiny, shrinking territory, military spokesman Brigadier Udaya Nanayakkara said.
Soldiers also recovered 50 assault rifles and communication equipment, he said. The military also ambushed and killed three rebels who infiltrated Viswamadu, a village previously captured by government forces, the military said in a statement.
The Tigers - who once commanded a de facto state across a large swath of the island's north and east - have been pushed into a small sliver of coastal land measuring just 8.4 square miles on the northeastern coast.
The military's account of the battles cannot be verified because independent journalists are barred from the war zone. Although there has been heavy fighting in the same area for weeks, the government says it is close to crushing the rebels, formally known as the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam.
--more--"
Keep that in mind because they said this would be over by now.
They were saying a matter of days back in February!
"Sri Lanka safe zone now rebels' last stronghold
COLOMBO, Sri Lanka - Three days of intense fighting in Sri Lanka's northeast has left 420 Tamil Tiger rebels dead and pushed the remaining guerrillas into a small "no-fire" zone crowded with tens of thousands of civilians, the military said, a development likely to raise international concerns for the safety of those trapped.
The government offensive means the entire Puthukkudiyiruppu area, the last rebel stronghold on the edge of the safety zone in the island's northeast, is under military control, spokesman Brig. Udaya Nanayakkara said Sunday. He said the Tamil Tigers are now confined to the "no-fire" zone in a narrow strip of land along a beach.
The "no-fire" zone was declared earlier this year by the government as a place for civilians caught in the fighting to go. The area measures just 7.7 square miles. But now that the zone is all that remains of rebel territory, the focus turns to what will happen to civilians who fled there in hopes of reaching safety but now find themselves caught in what the military says will be the Tamil Tigers' last stand in a civil war that has spanned 25 years.
The military has accused the rebels of building fortifications inside the "no-fire" zone in preparation for a final showdown, but Nanayakkara declined Sunday to comment on what the military's next step would be. "We want to rescue the civilians. That's our priority," Nanayakkara said.
Then quit shelling them.
The government has rejected rebel calls for a cease-fire but has said it would continue to pause fighting -- as it has done in the past -- to allow civilians to leave the area. But earlier Sunday the military released a statement saying the rebels were "now facing a total annihilation as the soldiers are engaged in man-to-man combat against them in the last terror pocket."
The question remains how the military will "annihilate" the rebels while protecting the innocent.
--more--"
Answer: they can't, nor do they intend to or care. If they did they would just stop.
Not pause, stop -- permanently.
"Sri Lanka deaths rising, group warns" by Associated Press | April 11, 2009
COLOMBO, Sri Lanka - An international rights group yesterday urged Sri Lanka's military to stop firing artillery into a designated "no fire" zone, saying civilian casualties were skyrocketing.
The plea came as UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon telephoned Sri Lanka's president, Mahinda Rajapaksa, to discuss the plight of about 100,000 civilians trapped in the zone. New York-based Human Rights Watch said the area has been subjected to heavy shelling since Tuesday.
"Sri Lanka's so-called 'no-fire zone' is now one of the most dangerous places in the world," Brad Adams, the group's Asia director, said in a statement. Adams said the artillery barrages were "causing skyrocketing casualties." A doctor in the region told the group more than 120 people were killed over a three-day period and about 700 were wounded, the statement said.
The pro-rebel TamilNet website said on Thursday that shelling by the military killed 129 civilians inside the safe zone on Wednesday. Media Minister Anura Yapa rejected the allegations.
--more--"
And then, finally....
"Sri Lanka suspends offensives against rebels; Seeks to allow trapped civilians to leave war zone" by Krishan Francis, Associated Press | April 13, 2009
COLOMBO, Sri Lanka - Sri Lanka's president ordered a two-day suspension of offensives against Tamil Tiger rebels to enable tens of thousands of trapped civilians to leave the war zone, his office said yesterday.
President Mahinda Rajapaksa directed the armed forces to restrict operations during the April 13-14 Sri Lankan New Year to a defensive nature and renewed his call to the rebel group to "acknowledge its military defeat and lay down its weapons and surrender," a statement said.
He said the rebels must renounce violence permanently.
Yeah, GOVERNMENTS NEVER HAVE TO and THEY are the ones that MURDER EN MASSE (as we see here).
The president's call was made amid increasing international pressure on the government to protect civilians trapped along with the remaining guerrillas in a government-declared "no-fire" zone measuring 7.7 square miles. The UN says about 100,000 civilians are trapped in the war zone with dozens dying every day.
And the U.N is like a slow-motion replay in responding to any of this. They are so damn useless.
The government and aid groups accuse the rebels of using civilians as human shields and have called for their release. The rebels and rights groups have accused the military of firing into the safe zone - a charge the military denies.
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said he would have liked to see a longer halt, but said the government plan was a "useful first step and an opportunity to move towards the peaceful and orderly end to the fighting now so badly needed."
--more--"Oh, please....
"Rebels trap civilians in Sri Lanka, UN aide says" by Edith M. Lederer, Associated Press | April 16, 2009
UNITED NATIONS - The UN humanitarian chief is accusing Tamil Tiger fighters of keeping 100,000 civilians trapped in a Sri Lankan war zone during a 48-hour cease-fire, which he criticized as too short a time to deliver much-needed humanitarian aid.
John Holmes urged a longer pause in hostilities. The civilians are trapped in a "no-fire zone" on Sri Lanka's northeastern coast as government forces try to push the ethnic separatist rebels into an ever-shrinking area, hoping to end the Indian Ocean nation's 25-year civil war.
Under intense international pressure, the government declared a unilateral cease-fire on Monday and Tuesday and urged civilians to leave the zone, but only a few hundred fled. The government says the rebels are preventing the civilians from escaping. The rebels say the civilians do not want to leave.
A pro-rebel website reported that Sri Lankan forces attacked Tamil guerrillas with mortar fire, artillery, and heavy machine guns yesterday after the cease-fire ended, killing as many as 180 civilians. The government said it had only launched a rescue mission.
Of course, media is barred from the area so the "he said, she said" is passed of as news.
President Mahinda Rajapaksa declared the cease-fire to mark the Sri Lankan New Year, but the rebels called it an "act of hoodwinking" and said only an internationally supervised truce would be effective. The pro-rebel TamilNet website said the government launched a large-scale attack for three hours yesterday morning near the "no-fire zone," which measures 7.7 square miles. As 180 civilians were killed in the fighting, the website said.
Mr Ban?
The top government health official in the war zone, Dr. Thurairaja Varatharajah, said since Tuesday night six bodies and 68 civilians suffering bullet wounds were brought to a makeshift hospital that he runs out of a school.
So when is Sri Lanka going to do its Israel imitation and bomb the school/hospital?
--more--"
COLOMBO, Sri Lanka - The army breached one of the last Tamil Tiger rebel fortifications yesterday and freed thousands of trapped civilians, some fleeing through the neck-high water of a lagoon while bleeding or carrying wounded relatives.
The government warned the rebels they had 24 hours to surrender or face a final assault to end a crumbling 25-year insurgency that sought to create a separate homeland for ethnic Tamils on this South Asian island.
President Mahinda Rajapaksa went on Sri Lanka's national television to say that soldiers helped more than 35,000 civilians leave the battle zone in what he called the "largest-ever hostage rescue mission in history." The Red Cross said its workers had tended to 4,000 people who crossed the front lines yesterday. Spokeswoman Sarasi Wijeratne said the organization was not in a position to "confirm or deny" the large number being quoted.
A pro-rebel website, meanwhile, said hundreds of civilians might have been killed in the "total chaos" that prevailed when soldiers entered the zone. It was not possible to verify any of the reports because journalists are restricted in the war zone.
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon welcomed the civilians' escape but remained deeply concerned about thousands still trapped and "the potential for large-scale casualties," UN spokeswoman Marie Okabe said in New York. Ban also said aid workers must be allowed into the area to help civilians. US State Department spokesman Robert Wood called the humanitarian situation "dire" and asked both sides to "cease this violent activity."
And three weeks later? If this happened to Jews in Israel, would the U.S. and U.N being wringing hands and doing nothing?
The UN had estimated 100,000 civilians were trapped in the zone where the rebels have been pinned down, an area that measures less than 8 square miles. UN officials say 4,500 noncombatants have been killed over the last three months amid fierce fighting during a government offensive that has driven the rebels from their strongholds.
Gee-zus!!!
The military spokesman, Brigadier Udaya Nanayakkara, said soldiers broke through part of a 7-mile-long earthen barrier erected by the Tamil Tigers to seal off the small area that had been designated a "no-fire zone" and where the rebels have dug in for a final stand. That allowed civilians to stream out toward government lines.
Sounds like Gaza, except they can't leave.
Video on state television Rupavahini showed dozens of men and women wading across a lagoon in neck-high water. Some people were wounded and dripping blood. Others carried children or wounded relatives on their shoulders. A girl wept over the body of a relative who state television said was killed in a rebel suicide bombing aimed at preventing civilians from leaving.
I wish the AmeriKan jewsmedia hadn't lied so much because even if this is true, I no longer believe one word they say. It's either distorted, twisted half-truths or complete lies.
Few possessions were carried out. Some people wore rucksacks on their backs, others held sacks on their shoulders or bulkier bags on their heads. "We couldn't move from there. In all directions the LTTE (Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam) cadres were surrounding and searching everywhere. If they found someone planning to escape they will immediately shoot them down," a man named Murugan told state television.
The air force showed video taken by reporters in a surveillance plane in which dozens of civilians ran toward the army's front line, most of them carrying bags on their heads. Footage shot by Associated Press Television News showed men, women, and children resting on a beach at Puttumattalan after fleeing the war zone. The military said the vast majority of those who fled yesterday - more than 25,000 - headed to an army-controlled area where they were being screened.
Detained?
The military spokesman said 2,165 people also escaped in 103 boats and were picked up by the navy at sea. The exodus came just days after the military announced a unilateral, two-day cease-fire to encourage civilians to flee. Only a few hundred left initially, prompting the government to again accuse the rebels of using civilians as human shields, a charge also made by aid groups.
Tamil rebels have previously denied forcing civilians to stay, but the rebels could not be contacted for comment yesterday.--more--"
"More fear voiced for Sri Lanka civilians" by Krishan Francis, Associated Press | April 22, 2009
COLOMBO, Sri Lanka - Tens of thousands of civilians trapped in Sri Lanka's northern war zone face a catastrophic situation, the Red Cross said yesterday, amid fears a final assault against the Tamil Tiger rebels would lead to a dramatic rise in casualties.
The United Nations and others have called for a truce to allow civilians to leave the rebel-held coastal strip - and the government says more than 52,000 have escaped since Monday.
I am ALWAYS for TRUCES!!!!
But it has refused to heed international pleas to halt the fighting, saying it is on the verge of crushing the separatists and ending the 25-year-old war. The UN estimates that more than 4,500 civilians have been killed in the past three months. The rebels said more than 1,000 civilians died Monday in a government raid, while the government said it rescued thousands after they broke through a barrier built by the insurgents that protects the Tigers' last stronghold.
Human rights groups say the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam are holding many people in the enclave against their will and using them as human shields. Those activists have also accused the government of indiscriminate shelling in the region. Both sides deny the allegations.
Thousands of civilians also fled on Monday in packed small boats, and they were picked up by navy patrols and transported to camps where Tamils who have escaped the war are being held. More than 2,000 people in about 100 boats were picked up.
The Red Cross said about 50,000 civilians were still stranded. Human Rights Watch estimated it could be up to 100,000. A worker for Doctors Without Borders said hundreds of wounded were arriving at her hospital in Vavuniya, south of the war zone, in government-arranged buses, and some had died en route. The hospital, with only 400 beds, is now accommodating 1,200 people, the group said.
It was impossible to get independent accounts of casualties because journalists are restricted from the war zone. The number of fleeing civilians made it clear that the government had vastly underestimated how many people were caught in the fighting.
"Both sides need to show far greater concern for civilians, or many more civilians will die," said Brad Adams, Asia director for Human Rights Watch, a group based in New York. A final government offensive "could lead to a dramatic increase in the number of civilian casualties," the International Committee of the Red Cross said. "The situation is nothing short of catastrophic," said Red Cross operations director Pierre Kraehenbuehl.
--more--"
And getting worse by the day:
Civilians arrived at a safe Sri Lanka village yesterday after fleeing an area held by rebel forces that was breached by the army. (Reuters)
COLOMBO, Sri Lanka - Sri Lankan troops closed in on separatist rebels in an ever-shrinking coastal war zone yesterday, as two prominent guerrillas surrendered and tens of thousands of refugees clutching their belongings fled the fighting in boats.
Photos released by the military showed the sandy beaches north of the 5-mile-long combat zone filled with ethnic Tamil civilians. Mothers held infants and others carried sick relatives as they sailed to government territory with a navy escort.
The fighting and the surrender of the two officials may be an indication that the guerrilla Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam are feeling pressure from the army's monthslong offensive to end the 25-year-old conflict. The rebels had previously ignored calls to surrender.
But they have called for cease-fires, one-sided MSM!!!
The rebels' former media spokesman, Velayutham Dayanithi, whose nom de guerre is Daya Master, and an interpreter for the group's political wing, who is known only as George, turned themselves over to government forces. The two played prominent roles in talking to the media and visiting foreign diplomats in a now-defunct peace process brokered by Norway....
The United Nations and humanitarian groups called for an immediate stop to the fighting so that more people could escape, as concerns rose for the thousands of ethnic Tamil civilians trapped in the war zone. Over the past three days, an estimated 100,000 people fled the coastal strip after soldiers broke through a key rebel embankment, military officials said.
The government had previously declared the area a no-fire zone to protect civilians. But troops broke through the fortification, entered the zone, and captured part of it during fighting Monday and Tuesday. At least 43 rebels were killed, Nanayakkara said. The government ignored calls to stop the fighting, saying it was on the verge of crushing the insurgency as troops drove rebels from their former strongholds and hemmed them into the tiny strip of coast.
The UN estimates that more than 4,500 civilians have been killed the past three months, but the world body, like all aid groups, has no access to the densely populated area. On Tuesday, the United States released satellite images showing about 25,000 tents for civilians squeezed into the rebel territory.
Journalists are barred from the area, unable to check accusations traded by the rebels and military. Dr. Thangamuttu Sathyamurthi, one of the few physicians working in the war zone, said the bodies of 80 civilians were brought to two makeshift hospitals soon after Monday's army raid. He speculated that the toll was higher, but that many victims' bodies had already been buried.
Fighting continued yesterday and artillery shells fell near a Roman Catholic church, wounding a priest and killing three civilians who had pitched tents nearby, Sathyamurthi said. The military, which denies targeting civilians or using heavy weapons on populated areas, accused the rebels of firing artillery.
Now who would want to do something like that, seeing as the Tamils are a mix of Christians and Hindus? Cui bono?
Red Cross spokeswomen Sarasi Wijeratne said about 1,000 badly wounded people were in desperate need of treatment or evacuation to better hospitals. Only two ill-equipped, makeshift hospitals function in the war zone. Wijeratne said the Red Cross had evacuated 6,000 civilians wounded in fighting since January.
In London, about 3,000 demonstrators massed outside Britain's Parliament yesterday to call for an immediate cease-fire. The pro-Tamil protests have included hunger strikes and instances in which demonstrators have attempted to set themselves on fire.
Oh, that last one!
Britain and France said yesterday they were pressing for more international help for civilians, including perhaps sending boats for an evacuation mission.--more--"
Yeah, yeah, more European fart-mist.
Also related: The Boston Sunday Globe Omissions: Tamils Protest
Military personnel tended to a child at a camp in northern Sri Lanka, where people are staying after fleeing the war zone. (Reuters)
COLOMBO, Sri Lanka - The more than 100,000 civilians pouring out of Sri Lanka's war zone have included people with untreated blast, mine, and gunshot wounds - prompting the UN chief yesterday to order an expert team to assess the "rapidly deteriorating situation."
Doctors Without Borders warned that civilian casualties are rising in the zone where the military is trying to finish off a 25-year-old insurgency, while the government pleaded for humanitarian aid.
Unreal!
"I saw infants with dysentery, malnourished children and women, untended wounds, and people dressed in the ragged clothing they've been wearing for months," said Neil Buhne, the UN humanitarian coordinator, after returning from the northern town of Vauniya, where tens of thousands of people are kept in overcrowded government camps.
You mean, CONCENTRATION CAMPS?
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, speaking to reporters in Brussels, said he would immediately send a team of humanitarian experts to monitor the situation and "try to do whatever we can to protect the civilian population."
The impotent U.N.
The government says 104,862 civilians have escaped the conflict since Monday. Some 170,000 to 180,000 civilians now live in the government camps, said Gordon Weiss, the UN spokesman in Colombo. An additional 15,000 to 20,000 civilians remain trapped in the coastal strip measuring just 5 square miles still controlled by the ethnic separatist Tamil Tigers. Reports on life there are limited because reporters are not allowed.
Weiss said no food has been delivered to the war zone since April 1. "The conditions are absolutely awful. The people are living with a shortage of food and medicines and subjected to artillery and small-arms fire," he said.
The UN Security Council has asked the Tamil Tigers to lay down their arms and join talks to end the civil war.
How come governments never have to lat down their arms, huh?
The United Nations also urged the government to give international aid agencies access to those affected by the fighting. Since September, only the International Committee of the Red Cross has had access. Foreign Minister Rohitha Bogollagama said the government was working to grant more access to those who had left the war zone, but that will depend on the security situation.
The Red Cross evacuated 350 wounded to a hospital outside the war zone Wednesday. Another evacuation was planned for yesterday, Red Cross spokeswomen Sarasi Wijeratne said. Fifteen people were killed yesterday when shells hit a Roman Catholic church for a second time in two days.
Just the fact that they saved the daily deaths until the final sentence indicates who is responsible.
--more--"
"Sri Lankan official appeals for aid" by Globe Staff | April 25, 2009
WASHINGTON - Sri Lanka's minister of resettlement and disaster relief, Rishad Bathiudeen, met yesterday with former president Bill Clinton and UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon to request assistance for some 170,000 displaced civilians who have made their way out of areas held by Tamil rebels battling the Sri Lankan government.
"We want to resettle them immediately," Bathiudeen said in a telephone interview. "We want all the activities to treat them, to give them food and water." Bathiudeen, a Tamil-speaking Muslim who himself lived for a time in a camp for displaced people after Tamil rebels asked Muslims to leave the area, also appealed to Sri Lanka's expatriate community around the world.
Wouldn't the Tamils be our friends then? Expelling the "real terrorists?"
He said more than 300,000 people have been internally displaced by the fighting between the government and Tamil rebels who seek a Tamil homeland. He said he expects another 15,000 to emerge from the area where rebels are currently battling government forces.
Bathiudeen was in New York for a UN initiative on lessons learned from the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami. Both the Sri Lankan government and the rebels have been accused of endangering civilians in their 25-year conflict.--more--"
"Sri Lankan rebels ask for cease-fire; Government calls offer 'a joke' as it pushes offensive" by Bharatha Mallawarachi, Associated Press | April 27, 2009
Some of the more than 100,000 that fled the area held by the rebel Tamil Tigers stood in line to receive food and water yesterday in a refugee camp near Manik in northern Sri Lanka. (Reuters)
COLOMBO, Sri Lanka - Facing imminent battlefield defeat, Sri Lanka's Tamil Tiger rebels declared a unilateral cease-fire yesterday and called on the government to halt its offensive to spare the tens of thousands of civilians trapped by the fighting.
The government rejected the appeal and accused the rebels of playing for time as the military stands poised to rout them and end the separatist war that has plagued the Indian Ocean island nation for a quarter century.
Like I said, you can plug in Israel for Sri Lankan government and Palestinians for Tamils.
"This is a joke," Defense Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa said of the rebels' truce offer. The cease-fire declaration came amid international appeals for a pause in the fighting to allow the estimated 50,000 ethnic Tamil civilians in the war zone to escape. The government and aid groups accuse the rebels of holding the civilians hostage to blunt the government offensive, a charge the rebels deny.
Reports from the region describe growing numbers of starvation cases and civilian casualties in recent days. The United Nations, which says nearly 6,500 civilians have been killed during the past three months, has sent its top humanitarian official on an emergency mission to Sri Lanka to push for a cease-fire.
So in three weeks or so, TWO THOUAND PEOPLE have been KILLED!!! Shades of Gaza!
John Holmes met yesterday with senior government officials to underscore "the urgent need for humanitarian access by the UN to the combat zone," UN spokesman Gordon Weiss said. The government barred aid workers from the region when fighting escalated in September.
Holmes was to head today to the northern region of Vavuniya to inspect displacement camps and hospitals that have been overwhelmed by the more than 100,000 civilians who fled the war zone during the past week. In response to the international truce appeals, the rebels said yesterday that all offensive military operations would "cease with immediate effect."
They asked the international community to pressure the government to halt its offensive, saying the "humanitarian crisis can only be overcome by the declaration of an immediate cease-fire," according to a statement e-mailed to the Associated Press. Both sides have declared previous cease-fires during the recent fighting, but they did little more than briefly disrupt the war's momentum because the other side continued fighting.
The Tamil Tigers, listed as a terrorist group by many Western nations, have been fighting since 1983 for an ethnic Tamil state in the north and east after decades of marginalization by governments dominated by the Sinhalese majority. The rebels ran a shadow state across the north. But a government offensive forced them out of their strongholds, cornering them into a narrow coastal strip less than 4 miles long.
That strip also keeps getting smaller!
--more--"
COLOMBO, Sri Lanka - Government forces fired barrages of artillery into the northern war zone yesterday, killing at least 11 civilians, a day after it pledged to stop such attacks because of the risk to innocent lives, a rebel-linked website and a local doctor said.
They are so like Israel!
Military spokesman Brigadier Udaya Nanayakkara denied the accusation.
They ARE so like Israel!
While government troops were pushing forward with their fight to destroy the Tamil Tiger rebels, he said, they were using only small arms. The dispute came as Sri Lanka fought off intense international pressure to accept a temporary truce to allow tens of thousands of trapped civilians to escape the fighting. The foreign ministers of Britain and France were headed here today to further press the government for a cease-fire.
Yeah, yeah, Britain, France, ont here way, so what? The killing continues....
The government, which accuses the Tamil Tigers of holding the civilians as human shields, said any pause in the battle would allow the rebels to regroup just as they face certain defeat in their quarter-century separatist war. The TamilNet website reported that Sri Lankan troops fired repeated volleys of artillery and mortar shells into the area in an attack that began late Monday and lasted through yesterday morning.
About a dozen shells hit a makeshift hospital inside rebel territory, killing five patients and sending many others fleeing for their lives, said Dr. Thangamuttu Sathyamurthi, a government physician working in the war zone.
That's a GOVERNMENT PHYSICAIN, folks, not a Tamil propagandist!
--more--"
"Sri Lanka rejects calls for cease-fire" by Ravi Nessman, Associated Press | May 1, 2009
COLOMBO, Sri Lanka - Sri Lanka said yesterday that it would push ahead with its offensive against the Tamil Tigers, brushing off international calls for a cease-fire aimed at protecting thousands of civilians trapped in the war zone.
The rebels, facing near-certain defeat, vowed to fight on as well. The defiant statements left little hope of averting a violent finale to the civil war that has plagued this Indian Ocean island nation for more than a quarter-century.
WHEN? I've heard this will be over for MONTHS now!!!
And yet the killing goes on and on and on!
The British and French foreign ministers came to Sri Lanka on Wednesday to press for a truce and Japan's special mediator for the conflict, Yasushi Akashi, was to arrive yesterday to appeal to the government to safeguard the estimated 50,000 civilians trapped by the fighting.
But President Mahinda Rajapaksa said he had no intention of calling off the military, which has cornered the remaining rebel fighters in a tiny strip of land along the northeast coast.
"The government is not ready to enter into any kind of cease-fire with the terrorists," he said.
Rajapaksa said his government was trying to rescue the trapped civilians and appeared impatient at the continued truce appeals.
Then ACCEPT ONE and SHADDUP!!!!
"It is my duty to protect the people of this country. I don't need lectures from Western representatives," he said, according to highlights of a speech distributed by his office.
Well, I can't fault him there.
Defense Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa, the president's brother, said the war would not end until rebel leader Velupillai Prabhakaran is captured or killed, according to The Island newspaper. The separatist rebels, meanwhile, called on the international community to work harder to stop the war - while promising to fight on.
Yeah, they sure are dragging their heels, 'eh?
"If any country really cares about these people, I ask that country to go beyond its 'diplomatic boundaries' for the sake of saving human lives and make Sri Lanka stop this genocidal war," rebel political chief Balasingam Nadesan told the Associated Press in an e-mail interview from the war zone.
In recent months, government troops forced the Tamil Tigers out of the shadow state they controlled in the north and cornered them in a narrow coastal strip. The UN says nearly 6,500 ethnic Tamil civilians have been killed in the offensive. The Red Cross said yesterday that conditions in the war zone were desperate.
--more--"
And they just got more desperate:
"Sri Lanka - at least 64 dead as 'army shells' hospital
Associated Press
3 May 2009
Artillery shells hit a makeshift hospital in Sri Lanka's northern war zone yesterday, killing at least 64 civilians, according to a government doctor and a website linked to the Tamil Tiger separatists, amid growing international pressure to safeguard thousands of civilians trapped in the area.
Military spokesman Brigadier Udaya Nanayakkara denied the accusation, saying soldiers were only using small arms as they pushed forward to seize the remaining territory held by the Tigers along a small coastal strip in the island's northeast.
The government doctor, who refused to be named, said at least 64 patients and bystanders were killed in two artillery attacks, and another 87 people wounded. The hospital is inside rebel-held territory but is run by government doctors.
