Category: Politics

June 17, 2007 (AFP) – Sri Lanka has vowed to wage more attacks against Tamil rebels but analysts warn it faces the prospect of devastating retaliation and risks international isolation over rising rights abuses.State-run media said last week that Tamil Tiger rebels were preparing for attacks on the capital’s harbour, oil storage complex and electricity […]

GENEVA, June 15, 2007 (AFP) – Amnesty International urged Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapakse to invite UN monitors to verify claims of human rights violations by both sides in the country’s bitter ethnic civil war.After meeting the president here Thursday, the watchdog group’s Secretary General Irene Khan said an escalation of rights abuses over the […]

GENEVA, June 15, 2007 (AFP) – President Mahinda Rajapakse of Sri Lanka and senior Sri Lankan officials said Friday that they were taking their own steps to find the truth behind recent killings of humanitarian workers and alleged rights violations.However, Rajapakse stopped short of responding directly to an appeal Amnesty International made to him Thursday, […]

June 14, 2007 (AFP) – A Filipino aid worker has been shot and wounded in northeastern Sri Lanka, a hospital spokeswoman said Thursday. Antonio Villeomour, of the US charity Mercy Corps, was being treated at Colombo’s National Hospital, spokeswoman Pushpa Soysa said. “He is conscious and not in a critical condition,” she told AFP. Villeomour […]

COLOMBO, June 13, 2007 (AFP) – Sri Lanka’s top defence official has accused Western nations of bullying his government over human rights and defended the eviction of ethnic Tamils from the capital, a report said Wednesday.Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapakse also rejected warnings from Britain that the former colony risked international isolation over the deteriorating rights […]

June 12, 2007 (LBO) – Britain’s minister for the Foreign and Commonwealth Office Kim Howells says his country will not lift the ban on the Tamil Tigers, and has called on both sides to the conflict to respect human rights. Dr Kim Howells MP Minister of State Foreign and Commonwealth Office June 12 2007 Howells […]

June 12, 2007 (AFP) – Sri Lanka’s president has called for “careful study” of a critical report that said the island is failing to investigate grave human rights abuses, a spokesman said Tuesday. President Mahinda Rajapakse was speaking after an international panel said a commission appointed to investigate 16 high profile cases, involving murder and […]

June 11, 2007 (AFP) – Sri Lanka was Monday accused of dragging its feet despite a promise to tackle major human rights violations, as Western diplomats warned they will deny visas to security personnel linked to abuses.An 11-member panel of international experts said a presidential commission of inquiry into cases including the massacre of aid […]

June 11, 2007 (AFP) – Britain Monday asked its former colony Sri Lanka to end its military campaign and resume peace talks with separatist Tamil Tiger guerrillas.“The situation in Sri Lanka looks darker now than my last visit in February, where there were many hopes of an all-party political solution that would create a basis […]

June 10, 2007 (AFP) – Sri Lanka’s prime minister on Sunday apologised to ethnic minority Tamils for evicting them from the capital, promising there would be no repeat of the controversial operation.“That is why I am expressing regret and apologising on behalf of the government.” “It was a big mistake,” Ratnasiri Wickremanayake told reporters here, […]

June 10, 2007 (AFP) – Tamil Tiger rebels have rigged up a truck with over a tonne of explosives that could blow up half of Colombo, Sri Lanka’s Prime Minister Ratnasiri Wickremanayake claimed Sunday.The authorities received information about the truck bomb following the discovery last week of over 1,000 kilogrammes (2,200 pounds) of plastic explosives […]

COLOMBO, June 8, 2007 (AFP) – Sri Lanka’s president Friday promised an investigation into police action that forced hundreds of ethnic Tamils from the capital at gunpoint in early morning raids condemned around the World. President Mahinda Rajapakse invited evicted people back to Colombo and ordered a disciplinary probe against the police chief responsible. Officers […]