Sri Lanka News Updates with Discussions

The resettlement of 15,000 Sri Lankan Tamil war refugees in Vaharai, 65 km north of Batticaloa town in Eastern Sri Lanka, appears to have been done without adequate planning and preparation.

After a visit to the site earlier this week, one felt that it would have been prudent for the government to have waited until the basic infrastructure in terms of housing, sanitation, water supply and power was created before the refugees were brought back.

It seems that the government was under mounting international pressure to do something for the 200,000-odd refugees created by the most recent phase of fighting. The refugees had become a major embarrassment to the Mahinda Rajapaksa regime.

British Prime Minister Tony Blair has said in a letter to President Mahinda Rajapaksha that soon after he stepped down from the Prime Ministerial post he wished to involve in the peace process in Sri Lanka as a representative.

It seems that the government was under mounting international pressure to do something for the 200,000-odd refugees created by the most recent phase of fighting. The refugees had become a major embarrassment to the Mahinda Rajapaksa regime.

No middle way for LTTE Tamil Terrorists

Last Updated:
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Published:
Saturday, June 16, 2007 News Source:
SinhalaNet®


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Dressed in a saffron robe with bare feet and a beatific smile, the Venerable Athuraliye Rathana thero looks like an icon of peace. But when he talks about the Tamil Tiger Terrorists, it sounds more like an army general.
'Day by day we are weakening the LTTE terrorism,' thero said, sitting in the grounds of a Buddhist school in Colombo. 'Talk can come later.'

As the war that has ravaged Sri Lanka for 25 years enters a new and terrible phase, Rathana and his fellow hardline Buddhist monks are urging President Mahinda Rajapaksa to keep the promise on which he came to power in late 2005: to crush the Tigers with military force.

The Tigers are fighting for a separate homeland in the north and east for the Tamil, mostly Hindu minority on a fabricated ground of discrimination by the Sinhalese Buddhist majority. Whereas Sinhala Buddhists were systematically discriminated by Tamils with the help of then colonial rulers of Britishes. When the British left in 1948, they left behind a parliamentary democracy that favoured for the Tamils over the Sinhalese in the theme of Britishes infamous management strategy of ?divide and ruled?.

Sri Lanka's Buddhist monks are at the vanguard of Sinhalese nationalism and their power is growing. In January, they joined the Government with their own party, the Jathika Hela Urumaya, or National Heritage Party, pushing its narrow one-seat majority up to nine. The Buddhists monks and majority Sri Lankan and many Tamils argue vociferously against any self-determination for the Tamils in the north with a separate land.

'The middle classes created the ideology of a Tamil homeland in the north and east,' said Rathana, who leads his party in parliament. 'Sri Lanka was totally a Sinhalese kingdom and most people accept that.' Over 50% of total Tamil population, 2 million Tamils, in Sri Lanka living peacefully outside the Northern Jaffna where LTTE terrorists wanted to crate a so called separate country elam.

'There is widespread discrimination against Tamils, who want to live as equal citizens with their rights and cultures recognised,' said Bishop Thomas Savundaranayagam of Jaffna, an outspoken defender of human rights.

Pro-LTTE terrorists, Bishop Thomas Savundaranayagam of Jaffna, recently criticized tiger terrorists stating that most people in Jaffna loathed the violent tactics of the Tamil Tigers, who have begun to demand up to two recruits from each family. Last August, the only road linking Jaffna to the rest of Sri Lanka was closed due to frequent artillery firing by Tamil terrorists.. The cost of food and medical supplies has soared, compounding the suffering of ordinary people due to LTTE?s war tactics..

The people here are scared. More than 300 civilians have been murdered in Jaffna by LTTE in the past 18 months, many of them are critics of LTTE or opposition political party members other than Pro-LTTE TNA.

Dressed in a saffron robe with bare feet and a beatific smile, the Venerable Athuraliye Rathana thero looks like an icon of peace. But when he talks about the Tamil Tiger Terrorists, it sounds more like an army general.

are they talking about our VINI? :))

we are on the crrent context, why you are dragging the events occured decades ago?? What Muslims resettlement has to do with Vaharai??

This does not sound a good counter argument

we are on the crrent context, why you are dragging the events occured decades ago?? What Muslims resettlement has to do with Vaharai??

This does not sound a good counter argument.....

Tell me...what is happening in vaharai??? Where is your buddy Karuna??