August 20

A Sri Lankan Police Sergeant was injured in a claymore blast at Saalambaikulam, Vavuniya. The claymore was fixed to bicycle, targeting the police patrol.

Gunmen riding a motorbike shot and killed a Sri Lanka Red Cross (SLRC) employee, Nagarasa Thavaranjitham, 24, at his residence in Chettikulam, Vavuniya. The motive behind the killing of Mr. Thavaranjitham, a long time employee of the SLRC, is not known.

Unidentified men shot dead a Tamil trader, Vasthiampillai Arul, 40, in the Grand Bazaar area in Trincomalee town. Assailants on a motorbike called out the trader from the shop and shot him in his head. The trader is the brother of a senior LTTE commander, Col. Sornam.

Gunmen shot and killed Subramaniam Chelvakumar, 18, a day before his planned wedding. The gunmen took him from his house in Vinayagapuram, Valaichchenai, shot him dead and placed a note beside his body labelling him “traitor,” according to the Police. “Ellalan Force” has claimed responsibility for the killing, Police said.

Sri Lanka Army (SLA) troopers and police cordoned off and searched several villages falling within the Valaichchenai police division in Batticaloa, arresting more than 200 Tamil men. The arrested residents were taken to Kalmadu SLA camp where they were photographed and interrogated. Many were later released but the SLA continues to hold an unknown number. The areas cordoned and searched were the villages of Puthukudiyiruppu, Pethalai, Vinayagapuram, Union colony, Valaichchenai, Kurinchinagar, Maruthanagar, Pandimadu, Kalmadu and Kannaki Kiramam.

The managing director of the Jaffna Tamil daily “Namathu Eelanadu” and the veteran chairman of Multi-Purpose Co-operative Society (MPCS) in Tellippalai, Jaffna, Sinnathamby Sivamaharajah, 68, was shot and killed at his temporary residence 300 metres inside the SLA High Security Zone (HSZ) in Tellippalai. Mr. Sivamaharajah is a former Tamil United Liberation Front (TULF) parliamentarian and a senior member of Ilankai Tamil Arasu Katchi (ITAK), the main constituent party of the Tamil National Alliance (TNA).

August 19

Unidentified gunmen shot and killed Karuneeswaran Kandeepan, 23, at Ellapar Maruthankulam, Vavuniya. Kandeepan was riding a bicycle towards his house in Asikulam when he was killed.

Unidentified gunmen fired at a police party at Kurumankadu, Vavuniya. Two AK rifles were recovered during the subsequent search of the area. About 75 SLA soldiers and police personnel cordoned off Kurumankadu and conducted a house-to-house search operation.

The mutilated body of Pushparaja Suthan, 18, a mason from Thiraimadu, with stab wounds in the neck and abdomen was found in near clock tower in Kallady, Batticaloa.

Four young men were shot dead by gunmen in the Jaffna Peninsula after curfew was relaxed in the Valikamam sector. Nageswaran Mayoorathan, 24, was shot dead at Aarukal Madam in Aanaikoddai. Sooriyapatham Mayurathan, 26, a trader, was shot dead near Nallur temple. Balasubramanium Raju, 25, was shot dead at Koddady near Jaffna town. Another unidentified young man was shot dead at Kasthuriyar road, near Jaffna Hindu College.

SLA soldiers cordoned off and arrested three brothers from their house in Punkudutheevu, an islet north of Jaffna. However, the SLA’s Civil Administration authorities have informed the relatives that they do not have any information about the arrest of brothers Wincent Natpirathapan, 28, Wincent Maxi, 24 and Wincent Jeyaprathapan, 17, a pupil of Punkudutheevu Mahavidyalayam.

August 18

A trader was shot and killed in Thalankuda, Batticaloa by unknown gunmen. Maniam Nallaiya, 47, was sleeping in his shop at Thalankuda main road when he was shot with a 9mm pistol. Maniam who owned the business, was living in the shop premises with his wife and three children.

Gunmen shot dead a Tamil civilian at Vinayagapuram in Valaichchenai, Batticaloa. The victim has been identified as Poopalapillai Koneswaran, 45, a father of four. A note signed ‘Ellalan Padai’ was found near Koneswaran’s body. Gunmen went to his house and took him to Koraweli temple and shot him. Koneswaran was abducted five months ago and was released recently. His son who was earlier in Karuna paramilitary group was also shot dead by unidentified gunmen.

A large number of SLA soldiers surrounded Jaffna University, broke open the office of the Jaffna University Students Federation, arrested a student activist and took away the computers and documents, while a curfew was being strictly observed. Hundreds of SLA troops arrived at the scene, asked the employees to gather in a certain spot, searched every nook and corner thoroughly, and even broke open some closed doors. The troops arrested T. Paherathan, 24, a 3rd year student from Mullaithivu reading Arts.

SLA soldiers shot and killed two men in their early thirties in Vadamaradchy East, Jaffna. The killing comes in the wake of the increased activity by the SLA in Karaveddy area.

Four unidentified armed men burnt down the warehouse of the Uthayan, the Jaffna Tamil daily, while a curfew was in force. The warehouse is located along Rasa Veethi in Kopay. Armed men set fire to the warehouse Friday night after ordering the watcher to move away. The watcher was blindfolded and his hands tied and the men ordered the watcher to keep quiet or he would be shot.

August 17

Sixteen Tamil civilians were arrested by SLA soldiers conducting a cordon and search operation in Chavakachcheri, Jaffna. About five thousand civilians were taken to Chavakachcheri Hindu College and were produced before a masked man who identified the sixteen civilians. They were detained in the Varani SLA camp. Relations of the arrested civilians immediately lodged complaints with the Jaffna regional office of the Human Rights Commission.

Sugunaraja Nimalan, 26, was shot dead at Kottai Rasa Veethi junction by gunmen while a group of SLA soldiers were conducting search operation about one hundred-meters away from the site.

The body of teacher R. Sureshkumar, 33, was recovered from Irupalai, Jaffna, and handed to the Jaffna teaching hospital.

August 16

Three Tamil youths were shot dead by the Special Task Force (STF), the elite counter-insurgency arm of the Sri Lankan police, in a cordon and search operation in Akkaraipattu, Amparai district. The STF and Police claimed that the youths were attempting to lob a grenade at them. The three youths were identified as M. Mathavarajah, 22 of Murakoddanchenai in Batticaloa district, C. Vinayagamoorthy, 23 of Alayadivembu and V. Vadivel, 23 of Ward 8, Akkaraipattu in Amparai.

August 15

Nine Muslim civilians buying provisions and a Policeman on guard duty near the Oddamavadi Bridge were injured when two assailants riding a motorbike hurled a hand grenade targeting the policemen at Oddamavadi Public Market in Valaichchenai. The injured Policeman, M. Nilantha, 34, and bystanders A. Sihamudeen, 15, M. Subair, 18, M. A. Mohammad Safeek ,32, Mohammad Abusali 36, Usanar Makkem, 36, M. I. Ahamed Lebbai, 43, M. Ismail, 48, A. Ismail, 80 and M. Meera Lebbai, 83 were admitted to hospital.

The mutilated body of a fisherman, with stab wounds in neck and abdomen area, was recovered in a stream by the Lagoon in Veddaththimunai, Oddamavadi by Valaichchenai Police. Kanthasamy Thiruvesvaran, 28, a father of two, from Kinnayady, Valaichchenai regularly goes fishing in the lagoon from Kinnayady to Oddamavadi. He disappeared after setting out to fish on 13 August at 8.30 pm.

Unidentified armed men forcibly entered a house in Mavadivembu village, Eravur, and indiscriminately fired at a family, killing a one and half year old baby boy and injuring his father and mother. The dead child has been identified Nimalan Nilukjan and the injured father Kandiah Nimalan, 22, and mother Jegatheesan Jeyamalar, 19.

SLA soldiers fired at a delivery van of the Uthayan at Puthur junction near Atchchuveli, killing the newspaper agent. The delivery van was on its way after distributing parcels of the Uthayan newspaper during the relaxation of the curfew. The victim, the driver and agent, was identified as Sathasivam Baskaran, 44. He is the fourth employee of the Uthayan newspaper to be slain in the recent past. One employee working in Sudar Oli, sister paper of Uthayan was killed in Colombo and two others in Jaffna recently in its Jaffna office.

Two motorbike gunmen gunned down a final-year medical student and a passed out student awaiting convocation near the Jaffna University hostel inside the campus. Medical faculty final year student Sivasankar and Theepan, currently studying at the Technical College, were walking towards the student hostel when motorbike gunmen opened fire using an automatic rifle.

A body of an unidentified youth, with gun shot wounds, whose face was burnt with tyres to hide his identification, was found at Potpathy Road, Kokkuvil, Jaffna, in front of the LTTE’s former Cultural Wing office. Local residents alerted the Jaffna Magistrate after hearing gunshots and noticing an object burning the previous night.

August 14

55 schoolgirls were killed and over 150 injured when Sri Lankan airforce jets dropped 16 bombs on the children’s home they were gathered at for a first aid workshop (see pages 8, 9, 10 and 15).

Seven persons, including four special commandos of Special Diplomatic Security Unit, providing escort to the vehicle of Pakistani High Commissioner in Sri Lanka, were killed in a three-wheeler explosion that targeted the military convoy in the heart of Colombo city (see box story 11).

An unidentified assailant, using a 9mm pistol, shot dead H. Puyalavan, 22, a resident of Kallady, Uppodai, Batticaloa. His body was taken to the Batticaloa Hospital for post-mortem examinations.

Police Sergeant M. Vijayaratne, 38, was injured when unknown gunmen hurled hand grenades at the Chenkalady Police Post located near the Eravur Pattu Divisional Secretariat.

Gunmen attacked the STF sentry point at Semmankulam, Mannar. In the retaliatory fire by the STF, one person was killed and another injured. Mannar Police said the person killed in the incident was a LTTE cadre and they recovered a T56 rifle and three magazines with 98 live bullets from him. He has been identified as Vettivelu Arumugam, 26 of Semamadu, Vavuniya. The injured was identified as K. Premadasa, 60, a Sinhalese, whose Mannar bound lorry from Madawachchi got caught in the firing.

August 13

Paramilitaries grabbed 4 motorbikes from residents in Arumuhaththan-Kidiyiruppu, Iyankerny and Thalavai in Eravur, Batticaloa. Gunmen also seized a motorbike from an Iyankerny resident, Mahalingam Tharma at the Iyankerny Level Crossing.

August 12

Kethesh Logananathan, Deputy Secretary General of Sri Lanka Government’s Secretariat for Coordinating the Peace Process (SCOPP), and a former member of the Eelam Peoples’ Revolutionary Liberation Front (EPRLF), was shot dead by unknown gunmen in Dehiwela, Colombo. Mr Loganathan received serious gunshot wounds and died on the way to hospital (see box story p13).

Cadres of the paramilitary Karuna Group working with the SLA abducted 15 Tamil civilians in Batticaloa and Amparai Districts in the past two days, , the Amparai District LTTE Political Head, Jeya, said. He further said the incidents have been reported to the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission (SLMM).

Relatives have lodged complaints with the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission (SLMM) that 9 Thirukkovil residents and 5 Thampiluvil residents were abducted Saturday evening by unidentified persons in a white-van and a car.

Further north in Eravur, a farmer, K. Vamathevan, 24, a father of one, was abducted by gunmen travelling in a white-car. More than 10 youths were abducted in the recent past from Puthukkudiyiruppu, Vinayagapuram, Peththalai, Kalkudah and Nasivanthivu in Valaichchenai but their relatives have not complained to the Police fearing reprisals from the Military and Police.

August 11

Unidentified men shot dead Subash Chandrabose Suganthan, 25, a member of the paramilitary Peoples’ Liberation Organisation of Tamil Eelam (PLOTE) group, at Ookulankulam, Vavuniya. The body of Suganthan was handed over to the Vavuniya district hospital by the SLA.

Mr. Tharmalingam Yogeswaran, was shot dead by unidentified men at Kovilkulam in Vavuniya.

A young boy working in a rice mill in Ninthavur, Amparai District, was kidnapped by unidentified persons when he went outside the mill. Saravanamuththu Santhiravathanan, 16, of Sittandy, Batticaloa, joined the mill only in July.

Seven Tamil civilians returning from a pilgrimage were killed by SLA artillery fire north of Muhamalai, Jaffna. Forty-eight civilians were returning from the Kathirgamam Hindu temple by bus when the SLA stopped them. As heavy fighting broke out, the civilians took cover. Four survivors, Subramaniyam Packiyaluxmy, 65, Arumugam Sivasubramaniam, 61, Nadarasa Indra, 51 and Thurairajah Thavamani, 68, said that they escaped by hiding behind latrine shed.

August 10

One SLA soldier was killed and two seriously injured when a claymore mine placed along the KKS Road between Kokuvil junction and Nachchimar Hindu Temple, Jaffna, targeted at a SLA road patrol. Additional reinforcement of SLA soldiers taken to the area in heavy military vehicles, cordoned off Nachchimar Temple and surrounding areas and conducted search operations, but no one was reported arrested.

Sinnarasa Vasanthan, 31, was killed when two gunmen riding a motorbike fired at him at close range in front of his house. Vasanthan, from Maruthadi Lane, Sandilipay, died on the spot. Iyathurai Selvatheepan, 26, who was talking with Vasanthan was seriously injured during the shooting and admitted to hospital.

A policeman and a civilian were injured when unidentified gunmen fired at them inside the public market in Kattankudy, Batticaloa district. Police constable M. Ranasinghe, 36, of Manchanthoduwai Police was buying daily provisions in the market when he was shot. In the firing, Abdul Lathiff, 35, a Muslim trader, also sustained injuries.

The Paramilitary Karuna Group abducted a Tamil youth of 4th Division, Vinayagapuram, Valaichchenai. Nesarasa Guruparan, 17, a mason, was resting at home when unidentified gunmen forcibly took him at gunpoint, according a complaint filed by Guruparan’s mother with the Valaichenai Police.

Akkaraipattu Police discovered the body of a youth with gun shot wounds at Panankadu junction, Amparai. Samithamby Mohanathas, 17, of the same area, was abducted from his house Wednesday night by unidentified gunmen, who shot him dead and dumped his body by roadside.

August 9

A police constable was injured when unidentified men fired at police sentries in Murunkan police division. The injured officer, identified as Premachchandra, was immediately rushed to hospital.

SLN troopers recovered a live claymore mine placed along Thalvupadu road aimed at the SLN personnel from Sunny Village SLN camp.

A paramilitary cadre belonging to the Eelam Peoples’ Democratic Party (EPDP) was shot dead by gunmen in Meeravodai, Valaichchenai. K Rajanikanth, 32, a father of two children, from 18th mile post Sunkankerni, was operating with the SLA troops based at the nearby Kommanthurai SLA camp. He was initially a paramilitary Karuna group member and changed allegiance to EPDP, recently. He was abducted from his home by unidentified persons before being shot. His body was found the next morning. The EPDP, a former militant group, is registered as a Sri Lankan political party but operates primarily as an Army-backed paramilitary group against the Liberation Tigers.

A medical services vehicle belonging to the Tamil Eelam Health Services, carrying four civilians, three health officials and the driver, was hit by a SLA claymore in Nayinamadu, Vavuniya. The civilians were injured but no one died in the attack.

August 8

A senior official of a pro-government paramilitary group and 9 other people were wounded in a bomb explosion in Colombo. Sankarapillai Sivathasan, a senior advisor to the EPDP and one of its former parliamentarians, was rushed to hospital. A security personnel and a 3-year old child in the vehicle were killed in the blast. Sivathasan is also a relative of EPDP leader Douglas Devananda. (photo page 16)

Two SLA soldiers were killed and 3 others injured in a claymore mine attack at Velveri, Trincomalee. The soldiers were on a road clearing operation along Trincomalee-Anuradhapura road when they were attacked. Sri Lankan Government troops launched a cordon and search operation in the surroundings of the area.

Unidentified men riding a motorbike shot dead a home guard in Akkaraipattu, Amparai district. The home guard was identified as Subair (26), a native of Addalaichchenai. The victim was on duty about 100 yards from the Akkaraipattu Police Station located along Akkaraipattu-Pottuvil main road when he was shot.

A STF soldier and a police constable were killed when a claymore hit a water carrier truck along in Amparai District. The truck was transporting water for the Uganthai Murugan temple festival. The STF cordoned off and searched the area following the attack.

The STF confiscated 5 tractors and 2 motorbikes belonging to Tamil farmers in Akkaraipattu, Amparai, allegedly in retaliation for the hijacking of a tractor belonging to a Sinhalese man two days earlier. When the farmers went to the Akkaraippattu STF Camp, they were told the vehicles were seized in retaliation for hijacking a tractor belonging to a Sinhalese farmer by LTTE, and the vehicles would be returned only if the hijacked tractor is released. Until then the seized vehicles would be held in Ingulana, Amparai for investigation purposes, the farmers were told. The LTTE denied any involvement in the disappearance of the Sinhalese farmer’s tractor.

A Sri Lanka Red Cross (SLRC) vehicle was hijacked by a group of armed men as it was returning from LTTE controlled territory in Arippu, Mannar district. The occupants, a medical officer, a dispenser and the driver, were asked to get down from the vehicle and the armed men drove off in the vehicle. The SLRC vehicle was returning after conducting a mobile medical camp in Arippu. The hijack took place near Aruvi Aaru (Malwathu Oya) which is located in Sri Lanka Army controlled Nanattan division.

Five medical personnel were killed when the ambulance they were travelling in was the target of a claymore attack in LTTE-controlled Vanni (see box story page 12).

August 7

A senior commander of the STF was mortally wounded when his vehicle was ambushed by attackers with a claymore mine. Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) Upul Seneviratne was seriously wounded in the blast at Digana, 10 km southeast of Kandy, and succumbed to his wounds at hospital. SSP Seneviratne had served in the eastern province, including as head of the STF in the region. The STF’s top commander, Inspector General Nimal Lewke blamed the LTTE for the claymore attack.

Paramilitary cadres working with the SLA shot a young family man dead in Kurinchi Nagar, Valaichchenai. Kanapathipillai Kamalanathan, 22, was sleeping at his home, when paramilitary men took him away from his house and shot him dead at the near by Maruthanagar junction.

A police constable was shot and killed by unknown gunmen about 50 meters from the Batticaloa police station. Police constable G Wickremesinghe, 44, who was on duty at the Batticaloa police station, was shot dead when he went to a nearby shop.

Two houses located along Batticaloa-Kaluwankerni main road were burnt down by a paramilitary group working with Sri Lanka State security forces. One house belonged to Mylvaganam Arumugam, who is related to Gnanatheepan, the paramilitary Karuna group cadre who surrendered to the LTTE after killing five Karuna group members, including Iniyabarathy, last year. The other house destroyed by the fire belonged to family with four school going children. The arsonists were travelling in a white coloured van and on motorbikes. Two sisters of Puhalventhan, who escaped from the Karuna paramilitary group with Gnanatheepan, were killed on 8 December last year.

Kandasamy Govindarajah, 25, a resident of Meeravodai and one of the two Tamil civilians taken into custody during a cordon and search operation conducted by paramilitary forces with security cover by SLA soldiers and Sri Lanka Police Monday afternoon, was shot dead the same day night at 18th mile post in Kalodavi, Batticaloa. The whereabouts of Mylvaganam Sasi (23) who was abducted along with Govindarajah, are not known.

Paramilitary cadres shot and killed Seenithamby Sankar, 20. His sister’s husband, Thandavam Selvarajah, 36, was also injured in the attack in Vantharumoolai, Batticaloa. Members of the Karuna group had gone to their house, located in Alaiyadi Road, and fired at the victims while talking to them. Sankar was an agricultural labourer working in LTTE controlled Mylavedduwan. Eravur Police recovered a live grenade lobbed at the house by members of Karuna group after killing Sankar and injuring his sister’s husband. The group allegedly were searching for Sankar’s brother who is in the LTTE.

An LTTE cadre was shot dead by SLA troopers and paramilitaries hiding near the Santhiveli Kannaki Amman Temple, said Mr. Daya Mohan, Batticaloa district LTTE political head. Kaaththamuththu Jeyananthan, 25, from Thikiliveddai, Santhiveli was going to Santhiveli village for political work when he was shot by SLA soldiers and paramilitary Karuna Group men, he added.

The STF arrested two brothers, Mohansunthar Nathees, 19 years, and Mohansunthar Pirabakanth, 24, on a tip off in Arayampathy and handed over them to the Kattankudy Police for further investigation. The police claimed that 650 gram of explosives, bicycle balls and wires were recovered from their house.

A youth who worked in a garage as an auto-mechanic was shot dead by gunmen in Siruppidy, Valigamam East, Jaffna. Tharumu Theesan, 24, was returning home from work along Sripiddy Cemetary road when he was fired at by two men who followed him. According to eyewitnesses SLA soldiers were seen in the area several minutes before the crime was committed but had disappeared from the scene when Theesan was killed.

US authorities this week charged eight men with providing material support to the Tamil Tigers the US Justice Department said. The LTTE has said the individuals, all expatriate Tamils, have nothing to do with it.

Amongst the charges are conspiring to buy surface to air missiles for the Tamil Tigers and bribing US officials to have the LTTE removed from a list of terrorist organizations and to obtain classified intelligence, a statement said.

Incredibly, the evidence included consensual recordings of telephone conversations and meetings with US officials, it added. The Tigers deny any involvement in the activities of the arrested individuals whilst Sri Lanka hailed the move.

“We don’t have any connection with those people. It is not our way of operating,” LTTE military spokesman Rasiah Ilanthiraiyan told Reuters.

Sri Lankan government spokesman Keheliya Rambukwella was quoted by AFP as saying “this is tangible support in the global war against terror. They [US] not only banned the Tigers in 1997, but have been cracking down on the group.”

The men arrested Monday were involved in “the procurement of military equipment, communications devices and other technology, fundraising and money laundering through charitable organizations and a myriad of other criminal activity, including conspiracy to bribe public officials,” the US statement said.

The US charges say the defendants are “closely connected” with LTTE leadership in Sri Lanka, and many of them have “personally met” with LTTE leader, Velupillai Pirapaharan, and other senior leaders of the terrorist group.

The defendants -- Sathajhan Sarachandran, Sahilal Sabaratnam, Thiruthanikan Thanigasalm, Nadarasa Yograrasa, Murugesu Vinayagamoorthy, Nachimuthu Socrates, Vijayshanthar Patpanathan, and Thirukumaran Sivasubramaniam -- were being held without bail and had initial appearances before a federal judge in Brooklyn on Monday,

Socrates, described in court papers as a Tamil Tigers supporter based in North America, is a US citizen of South Indian origin. The others are said to be Canadian or Sri Lankan nationals.

In a police operation, undercover agents posing as Department of State officials were offered millions of dollars during a series of secret meetings in a New York apartment, one of the two complaints setting out the charges said.

According to the US authorities, at a meeting in July 2005, Socrates asked undercover agents whether they “could stop the United States government from sending arms to the Sri Lankan government” and “provide intelligence about this issue,” the papers said.

Reached at his home in Simsbury, Connecticut, Nachimuthu Socrates’ son, Aristotle Socrates, told CNN that the charges were “absurd,” that his father was innocent and that he would be contesting the charges.

Socrates said his father was a businessman who had lived in Simsbury for 24 years, adding: “They’ve made a gross miscalculation.”

Full US statement: http://releases.usnewswire.com/GetRelease.asp?id=71049

A Tamil newspaper editor and former member of parliament was killed outside his home on the besieged Jaffna Peninsula late Sunday, international and local media reported.

Sinnathamby Sivamaharajah, managing director of the Tamil-language Namathu Eelanadu newspaper was shot dead in Vellippalai. Police are investigating the murder, according to news reports. The motive for the killing is unclear.

“We are concerned that the killing of Sinnathamby Sivamaharajah could be part of a pattern of violence against Tamil journalists and media workers covering this conflict,” said Joel Simon, executive director of the Committee to Protect Journalists.

“The targeting of journalists must cease. Authorities should conduct a thorough investigation into this murder and prosecute those responsible.”

Sivamaharajah, 68, was a former MP of the Tamil United Liberation Front (TULF), and a member of the Tamil National Alliance (TNA). His newspaper, Namathu Eelanadu, is sympathetic to the Tamil nationalist cause.

T Sivamaharajah’s home was inside a security zone controlled by the Sri Lankan military, and was under curfew at the time of the killing.

The Ministry of Defense denied that Sivamaharajah’s house was in the zone, and it accused the LTTE of the murder.

Three Tamil journalists—Subramaniyam Sugitharajah, Dharmeratnam Sivaram and Relangi Selvarajah—have been killed for their work since the beginning of 2005.

Warehouses containing printing equipment of another Jaffna-based Tamil newspaper, Uthayan, were burned down on Friday August 18 by unidentified men.

The Uthayan also has a Tamil nationalist editorial policy.

On Tuesday August 15, an Uthayan driver was killed in Jaffna, the fourth employee of the newspaper group to be killed in recent months.

Reporters Without Borders joined a chorus of rights groups in condemning the killing of a former minority Tamil politician and newspaper director gunned down in Jaffna at the weekend.

“All parties, especially the pro-government Tamil paramilitaries, must stop targeting civilians, journalists and humanitarian workers,” the group said in a statement. “The press is again the victim of Sri Lanka’s dirty war, and the government is partly to blame for this hellish cycle of violence.”

Kethesh Logananathan, Deputy Secretary General of Sri Lanka Government’s Peace Secretariat and a former member of the militant group, EPRLF, was shot dead by unknown gunmen on August 12.

The Sri Lankan government blamed the Liberation Tigers for the killing, which came amid heavy fighting in the Jaffna peninsula (see pages 1-5).

The killing near Vandervet place in Dehiwela Colombo occurred at 9:30 p.m. Saturday. Mr Loganathan received serious gunshot wounds and died on the way to Kalubowila Hospital.

On April 1, 2006, Mr. Loganathan resigned from the Board of Directors and as Head of the Peace and Conflict Analysis Unit of the Center for Policy Alternatives (CPA), a well known Colombo-based think-tank to take up a post with the government’s Secretariat for Coordinating the Peace Process (SCOPP).

Mr. Loganathan was a member of the EPRLF between 1983 and 1994, and took part in the negotiations between the Sri Lankan Government and Tamil militant groups. These included the Thimpu Peace talks of 1985, at which a coalition of 4 Tamil groups participated, to the Mangala Moonesinghe Parliamentary Select Committee of 1992.

Mr. Loganathan, who resigned from EPRLF in 1995, was a scathing critic of the LTTE.

His killing came two days before Sri Lankan air force bombers attacked a children’s home in LTTE-controlled Mullaitivu, killing 55 youngsters, and a bomb blast in Colombo narrowly missed the vehicle of the Pakistani High Commissioner to Sri Lanka. (see page 11)

The United States condemned the killing of Mr. Loganathan and the attack on the convoy, but was did not comment on the massacre of the teenagers.

In a statement, the US said “it condemns the murder of Mr. Loganathan and mourns the loss of an individual dedicated to bridging communities and building peace in Sri Lanka.”

Pandemonium erupted at a peace rally organized by the National Anti-War Front (NAWF) held on August 17 Thursday at Viharamahadevi Park when a group of monks of the Sinhala ultra-nationalist National Bhikku Front (NBF) arrived at the site.

NBF activists thereafter climbed the stage and started shouting at the organizers of the peace rally.

Mervyn Silva, a deputy minister was on his feet with 200 other activists, politicians and religious leaders, including pro-peace Buddhist monks, on stage when NBF monks and their supporters entered the stage forcefully.

Pandemonium reigned as NBF monks attempted to seize the microphone of a speaker

Fisticuffs ensued between the volunteers of NAWF and NBF. NBF protestors were pushed out of the stage forcibly by volunteers of the peace rally.

Thereafter the rally continued peacefully, although many parliamentarians and religious leaders left the site as the peace rally turned a site of violence.

NBF is a wing of all monks party-Jathika Hela Urumaya (JHU).

A doctor, his wife, two nurses and the driver of an ambulance belonging to Nedunkerni hospital, were killed on the night of August 8 when a Sri Lanka Army (SLA) Deep Penetration Unit (DPU) attacked the ambulance with claymore fragmentation mines.

The next day a civilian bus with 75 passengers narrowly escaped another claymore attack 10 kilometres from the Nedunkerni ambush site. A medical vehicle that was following the bus was hit, but no one was wounded.

International truce monitors, returning from inspecting the Nedunkerni site, were within a kilometre of the bus when the second mine attack took place.

The attack on the ambulance occurred at Pandarakulam on the Nedunkerni - Oddusuddan Road.

The doctor, Kathirkamathamby Jeyamalina, 68, the only doctor in the Nedunkerni area, was returning with his crew and his wife to Nedunkerni hospital after admitting a pregnant mother at Puthukudiyiruppu hospital around 11:30 p.m.

The DPU attack killed Jeyamalina Ponnamma, the wife of the medical doctor, Rasalingam Gnaneswari, 22, a nurse, Jehananthan Nahuleswari, 37, nurse and mother of three, and the driver Kasupathy Gopalasundaram, 54, father of three.

Mr. Kathirkamathamby Jeyamalina succumbed to his wounds while he was being taken to Puthudiyiruppu hospital.

Three claymore mines were exploded in a row, throwing the ambulance 50 meters away. The attackers had taken position 15 meters from the explosion site. Pieces of wire and biscuits were recovered from a bush, Tamileelam Police said.

Complaints were made to Eravur Police that at least 20 Tamil youngsters playing with their friends near Vishnu Temple surroundings were abducted by unidentified persons in a white van on August 15.

About fifteen unidentified armed men in a van took the boys away at gunpoint. The boys come from several villages including Santhiveli, Murakoddanchenai, Sithandy, Mawadivembu, Vantharumoolai and Kaluwankerni in the Eravur police division in Batticaloa district.

However only parents of five abducted youths – Giritharan Sulojan, 22, Sinnathurai Siventhran, 15, Ilayathamby Raveendran, 18 and Ramalingam Vethanayagam, 36 of Santhiveli and Krishnapillai Sivamoorthy, 17 of Sithandy – lodged formal complaints with Police.

Cadres of the paramilitary Karuna Group working with the SLA abducted 15 Tamil civilians in Batticaloa and Amparai Districts on August 11 (Fri) and 12 (Sat).

Relatives have lodged complaints with the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission (SLMM) that 9 Thirukkovil residents and 5 Thampiluvil residents were abducted Saturday evening by unidentified persons in a white-van and a car.

Hundreds of teenage boys have been abducted by Army-backed paramilitaries this year. Escapees and deserting paramilitary cadres say many are forcibly recruited into the Army-backed shadow war against the Liberation Tigers.

Seven people, including four commandos of Special Diplomatic Security Unit, were killed when the convoy of Pakistan’s High Commissioner in Sri Lanka was hit by a Claymore fragmentation mine

The outgoing High Commissioner, Col (retd) Bashir Wali Mohammed was unhurt in the blast on Flower Road in Kolpity, which Sri Lanka blamed on the Liberation Tigers.

Pakistan is a key supplier of weapons to Sri Lanka in its battle against the LTTE. This month two shiploads of arms to Colombo’s armed forces locked in pitched battles with the Tigers.

Mohammed, the first foreign diplomat to be targeted in the ethnic conflict, escaped unhurt but a car with Sri Lankan commandos following him took the full brunt of the deafening blast, killing four of the security personnel and three civilians.

A driver from the convoy which was escorting the embassy vehicle said he believed the convoy had been hit by two claymore fragmentation mines, suspected to have been placed in the back of a parker three-wheeler.

The bombing, just after 1 p.m. took place five hours after four Sri Lankan Kfir jets dropped 16 bombs on the compound of ‘Chencholai’, an orphanage the LTTE runs at Vallipunam on the Paranthan-Mullaitivu road, killing 55 schoolgirls and wounding 150, many seriously.

Sri Lanka turned to Pakistan to buy weapons after India turned down a request recently, reports said, adding that the shopping list was worth about 150 million dollars.

Col. Wali Mohammed had earlier served as head of Intelligence operations in the Pakistani High Commission in Colombo during the 1990s.

His appointment to Sri Lanka caused concern amongst India’s security establishment in the wake of reports he was instrumental in supporting Islamic fundamentalist groups opposed to Indian rule in Kashmir.

However Indian officials and political analysts dismissed reports in the Pakistani press that India’s external intelligence service, the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW), was to blame for the blast.

Since President Rajapakse came to power, many hundreds of Tamil civilians have died in deliberate Sri Lankan military attacks. The violence, as many Tamil observers have repeatedly protested, has been unambiguously directed at civilians.

Although these attacks are flagrant violations of international humanitarian law, the international community has failed to publicly and unequivocally condemn the Sri Lankan government’s policy of deliberately targeting civilians.

Many Tamils were initially bewildered by this international silence. But it is now apparent that the studied indifference to Tamil suffering is part of a wider, familiar, strategy.

Through their silence, international actors are allowing a space for the Sri Lankan government to pursue a strategy demoralisation the Tamils of sufficient intensity to induce them to despair. It is clear to all, including the Colombo government, that the international community intends to let the Tamils endure the military’s collective punishment until they resolutely turn away from the LTTE.

The central assumption made by those hectoring the Tamils about terrorism while they are bombed and starved is that international support is painfully critical to the Tamil struggle. The reality is, of course, that the Tamil struggle has never enjoyed even a fraction of the international sympathy and indulgent support afforded to the Sinhala Buddhist polity and the state.

In short, the Tamil project has come this far in the face of open and consistent international hostility and contempt.

Indeed, from as far back as the late 1940’s, when Tamils first began pressing their demands for territorial devolution, international actors have consistently adopted a policy of supporting the Sri Lankan state regardless of the consequences this has for the Tamil people.

For all those muttering about democratic pathways, international actors even backed successive Sri Lankan governments that unilaterally abrogated agreements made with the Federal Party, the Tamils’ then elected representatives.

Even through periodic bouts of state sponsored anti-Tamil violence that began in 1956 and punctuated every decade since, the Sri Lankan state enjoyed the unstinting support of its international friends.

Particularly telling was international community’s conduct immediately following the July 1983 anti Tamil riots in which thousands of Tamils were massacred in six days of undisguised and organised rioting.

Almost as soon as the flames had died down and the bewildered and brutalised Tamils began stumbling to their bloodied feet, the US Deputy Assistant Secretary visited the island. He hailed the strong relations between his country and Sri Lanka and congratulated the Sri Lankan embassy in Washington on the excellent job it was doing countering ‘Eelamist’ propaganda.

Within a year the Sri Lankan President, J. R. Jayawardene, was invited on a state visit to the United States, where he held discussions with President Ronald Regan on their common fight against, as troublemakers like Tamils were then known, ‘communist terrorism.’

As the war escalated and Sri Lanka imposed its economic blockage of the Tamil areas including the densely populated Jaffna peninsula, the US stepped up its military assistance, as did Britain (remember who set up and trained the STF which massacred so many Tamils – not to mention the Sinhala youth of the JVP era?)

In the same year that President Jayawardene was feted as an anti-communist and anti-terrorist hero in Washington, the British and Commonwealth Affairs Minister, Baroness Young, visited the island and said that Britain ‘sympathised with the Sri Lankan government efforts to combat terrorism.’

It goes without saying, of course, that there was very little sympathy for the Tamils, even amongst the self-styled leaders of the free world.

The international community’s determination to ignore Tamils’ suffering and view their struggle through the lens of terrorism is therefore nothing new. While the callous indifference is obviously hurtful it is no longer shocking – except perhaps for the new generations of Diaspora Tamils raised on a staple of democracy, human rights, etc. etc.

Since its inception in the 1940’s, the Tamil struggle has thus fallen on the wrong side of international priorities.

But in fact the Tamil nationalist project has become so multifaceted and mature precisely because of implacable international opposition.

When the international media failed to present a balanced picture of the Sri Lankan situation, the Tamils set up their own media outlets. As international organisations failed to respond to the humanitarian crises created by the economic embargo and Sri Lankan bombardment of the Northeast, the Tamils created and supported their own institutions, such as the Rehabilitation Organisation (TRO).

The international community’s duplicitous and partial use of liberal humanitarian norms has turned Tamils from all walks of life into well-seasoned cynical analysts, dissecting international statements for omissions and betrayals and international positions for hidden interests and loyalties.

The limited progress that has been made towards a just political settlement to Sri Lanka’s ethnic question is therefore entirely down to the Tamils themselves.

Even international actors recent discovery of Tamil ‘grievances,’ is itself thanks to the determined efforts of Tamil activists through the decades and not the result of some newfound international magnanimity or sympathy.

Indeed, notwithstanding their pretensions to omnipotence, the international community have proved themselves entirely incapable of forcing the Sri Lankan government to enter into a substantive engagement with Tamil demands.

Arguably its consistent attitude of hostility towards Tamil demands goes hand in hand with the international community’s complete lack of leverage over the Sri Lankan government that they have over the years so assiduously pampered.

Meanwhile, the international community’s record on the Tamil issue has convinced Sri Lankan politicians that the norms of liberalism and democracy are more or less convenient sticks with which to beat the Tamils. And that’s all they are.

The real and tangible substance of international engagement with the Tamil issue has always been in the language of fighting terrorism and noxious separatism. Even something as simple as the Post Tsunami Operational Management Structure (PTOMS), with its incontrovertibly humanitarian in intent, could not be delivered by Sri Lanka’s loyal friends.

Despite their evident lack of leverage over the Sri Lankan state, the international strategy of providing the Sri Lankan armed forces with a breathing space in which to brutalise the Tamil population out of its nationalist preoccupations looks set to continue.

The Times of London recently addressed the Tamil Diaspora in a hectoring editorial calling upon the Tamils to turn away from the LTTE and its evil, tyrannical terrorism. The Times magnanimously noted that the Tamils had legitimate grievances but told them in no uncertain terms that they ‘would not find peace until they turned away from the LTTE.’

This echoes statements made by the US ..Richard Boucher who has said that while his government recognised Tamil rights, it was completely determined to fighting all forms of ‘terrorism,’ whether it ‘emanates from the mountains of Afghanistan or the fields of Vanni.’

International humanitarian organisations are also in the chorus. The mealy mouthed comments made by UNICEF after visiting the bombed out remains of the Sencholai children’s home indicate a latent willingness to condone collective punishment of civilians in the greater interest of fighting the LTTE menace.

Although admitting that the victims were not LTTE cadres but schoolgirls on a residential first aid course, UNICEF pointedly wondered who was organising the course. Like it makes a difference.

But by suggesting that the civilians might have been consorting with the LTTE, she condoned the atrocity as just punishment for such association - even when for the purposes of first aid training.

Similarly the failure to condemn the killing of MP Joseph Pararajasingham as well as Vigneswaran, the elderly activist nominated to replace him, clearly demonstrate that even those who peacefully advocate the Tamil nationalist cause are fair game.

The slightest taint of association with the LTTE becomes the mark of a deserving victim. The irony of this policy being sanctioned by the very people who attack the LTTE for allegedly assassinating political opponents is not lost on the observant Tamils.

No doubt this type of rank hypocrisy and wilful misinterpretation was evident during earlier phases of Sri Lanka’s post-independence history.

We can just imagine the insightful editorials the Times might have written following each pogrom, telling the Tamils in no uncertain terms that their woes would not end until they stopped being such bad sports, abandoned the secessionist Federal Party and joined the political mainstream.

UNICEF might have wondered whether the children caught up in the riots were being indoctrinated with poisonous Tamil separatism by the youth wings of the Federal Party and later the Tamil United Liberation Front (TULF).

As the current phase of the conflict escalates the Tamils will undoubtedly have to brace themselves for further suffering.

Meanwhile international actors will deliver pious lectures to the Tamils on the paramount importance of liberal humanitarian norms - even as they ignore the collective suffering caused by the Sri Lankan military’s embargos, bombings and massacres.

But it is thus that Tamils and their struggle will grow. For Tamil resistance to oppression has always included confronting international contempt and hostility.

The Norwegian government, which is responsible for monitoring of Sri Lanka’s ceasefire said this week that its staff were withdrawing from the embattled Northeastern districts to the capitol, Colombo.

The Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission (SLMM), comprising staff from Nordic countries, is to lose many of its members at the end of the month: the LTTE has refused to accept monitors from countries that have proscribed the group.

Staff from Sweden, Finland and Denmark are being withdrawn, including SLMM head, Maj. Gen. (retd) Ulf Henricssion, who is Swedish.

The next head of the international ceasefire monitors in Sri Lanka is former Norwegian Army chief, Maj. Gen. Lars Johan Sølvberg. Maj. Gen. Sølvberg will take over from Maj. Gen. Henricsson at the end of the month.

“Swedish, Finnish and Danish members of the SLMM are due to leave by the end of August, as the LTTE will not accept EU nationals as monitors after 1 September,” a Norwegian government statement said.

“The gradual withdrawal of these 39 monitors (out of a total contingent of 57) has begun. Norwegian and Icelandic monitors will remain in Sri Lanka, and their number will gradually be increased to 30 when the ground situation permits and demands such an increase.”

“It is envisaged that additional monitors from other countries will be invited later,” the Norwegian statement also said.

Explaining the decision to pull even the Norwegian and Icelandic staff from the Northeast, the Norwegian embassy said: “At the moment, intensive military operations and fighting are taking place in several locations in the North and East. The parties are restricting the SLMM’s access to combat areas.”

“As a result, the Head of Mission, Major General Henricsson, has decided to regroup the international monitors in Colombo temporarily.”

“This will allow the SLMM to focus its full attention on ensuring that the scaled-down mission is safely and securely re-organised under new Norwegian and Icelandic leadership.”

“Norwegian and Icelandic monitors will be redeployed to the district offices as soon as the personnel is ready and the situation in each district permits the resumption of secure field monitoring.”

The new SLMM head, Maj. Gen. Sølvberg, 54, retired from the post of Chief of Staff of the Norwegian Army in 2005. Prior to that he headed the Army’s 6th Division for four years. He is credited with a key role in the Army transformation process over the past decade.

He has commanded an infantry brigade, a mechanised infantry brigade, a tank squadran as well as holding staff positions at all levels.

He is a graduate of the US Army War College (1998) and the US Army Command and General Staff College (1991), the Norwegian Army General Staff College (1988) and the Norwegian Military Academy (1977).

Since retiring, he has established a consultancy in Oslo.

The Air Force massacre of scores teenagers at the Sencholai children’s home in Vallipunam triggered outrage and anger amongst the Tamil community in Sri Lanka and Tamil Nadu. But whilst some international actors criticized the bombing, others were conspicuously muted, even silent.

The Tamil National Alliance (TNA), Sri Lanka’s largest Tamil political party, said the aerial bombardment on the well known children’s home “clearly indicates that the attack was premeditated, deliberate and vicious.”

The TNA appealed to the International Community “to take the earliest possible action to stop the Sri Lankan State from proceeding with its genocidal program.”

Tamil expatriates in North America, Europe and Australasia demonstrated and held vigils in protest.

Participants urged the international community to intervene to stop the atrocities of Sri Lanka armed forces and associated paramilitaries against Tamils in the Northeast.

Anger and outrage amongst Tamil Nadu’s population prompted an unprecedented condemnation of Sri Lanka by the state Assembly, with the unanimous backing of all parties.

Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi called for the parties’ unity to continue.

“Now the war is against the Sinhala racist forces,” Karunanidhi said, adding that in the war against Sinhala dominance, there may be competition in redeeming the lives of Tamils, but there should be no “infighting among the brothers”.

The Communist Party of India (Marxist) also condemned the attack. Protesting that innocents were being killed in the rising strife on the island, the CPI-M demanded the Indian government intervene to produce peace talks.

The Swiss government described the bombing as “an outrage.”

UN officials criticised the bombing, with Secretary-General Kofi Annan described by a UN spokesman as “ profoundly concerned at the rising death toll including reports of dozens of students killed in a school as a result of air strikes in the northeast.”

“These children are innocent victims of violence,” said Ann Veneman, head of the UN Children’s Fund. “We call on all parties to respect international humanitarian law and ensure children and the places where they live, study and play are protected from harm. “

But the Co-Chairs of Sri Lanka’s donor community - United States, European Union and Japan – maintained a public silence.

The ICRC, which condemned a similar SLAF airstrike in 1999 which killed 21 civilians, this time avoided comment.

Despite international criticism that its jets killed scores of innocent teenagers, Sri Lanka’s government this week continued to defend its bombing of a known children’s home in LTTE-controlled Mullaitivu.

55 people (51 schoolgirls and four staff)were killed and over 150 wounded on August 14 when four Sri Lanka Air Force (SLAF) Kfir jets dropped 16 bombs on the Sencholai children’s home in Vallipunam on Paranthan-Mullaithivu road.

Sri Lanka’s government said it had bombed a Tamil Tiger training camp and killed “50-60 terorrists.”

But international ceasefire monitors who visited the site said they couldn’t find “any evidence of military installations or weapons.”

The head of the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission (SLMM), Ulf Henricsson, said monitors who visited after the airstrike found at least 10 bomb craters and an unexploded bomb.

“It was not a military installation, we can see [that],” Mr. Henricsson told Sri Lanka’s MTV television.

“These children are innocent victims of violence,” said Ann M. Veneman, United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) Executive Director said in a statement.

UNICEF chief in Colombo JoAnna VanGerpen told AFP Tuesday: “As of this time, we don’t have any evidence that they are LTTE cadres.”

“These were children from surrounding schools in the area who were brought there for a two-day training workshop on first aid,” Ms. VanGerpen told AFP.

UNICEF said that the airstrike was a “shocking result of the rising violence,” in Sri Lanka and called on all parties to respect international humanitarian law and ensure children and the places where they live, study and play are protected from harm.

But even after the SLMM and UNICEF comments, the Sri Lankan government’s official spokesman, Minister Keheliya Rambukwella, insisted the bombed site was a Tamil Tiger training camp.

The government showed reporters a video which they claimed was proof the site was a training camp. However, the video only shows vehicles, including ambulances, rushing to the site after the airstrike and figures running to help.

The Tamil National Alliance (TNA), a coalition of the island’s four largest Tamil political parties, condemned the airstrike and appealed to the international community to restrain Sri Lanka’s armed forces.

“This attack is not merely atrocious and inhuman - it clearly has a genocidal intent. It is yet another instance of brazen state terrorism,” the TNA said.

Officials of the LTTE, briefing reporters in Kilinochchi, described the attack as “a horrible act of terror” by the Sri Lankan armed forces.

The site of the bombing had been designated a humanitarian zone and the LTTE had passed its coordinates on to the military via UNICEF, and the International Committee for the Red Cross (ICRC).

The GPS (Global Positioning Satellite) details were passed to the Sri Lankan military during the last period of conflict, before the 2002 ceasefire, as part of efforts to ensure protection of humanitarian spaces during conflict

More than 400 schoolgirls were staying in Chencholai. The Kfirs flew to the target without circling over the attack site, civilians said.

52 wounded girls were rushed to Mullaithivu hospital. 13 were admitted at Puthukudiyiruppu hospital. At least 64 wounded were taken to Kilinochchi hospital.

Girls from various schools in the Mullaitivu district were staying overnight at the compound, attending a course in first-aid, LTTE officials in Kilinochchi said.

The LTTE Peace Secretariat urged representatives of international agencies in Kilinochchi, including UNICEF, to visit the site of the bombing.

UNICEF staff from a nearby office immediately visited the compound to assess the situation and to provide fuel and supplies for the hospital as well as counselling support for the injured students and the bereaved families.

The Grama Sevaka (a civil servant) of Vallipunam, Mr. Sivarajah, told reporters that the area around the Sencholai home was a well identified civilian zone with other residential homes, including those for the disabled.

“[The Sencholai] compound was established eight years ago and is well known to international agencies,” Mr. Sivarajah said. “Many UN seminars, including those conducted by UNICEF have been held here.”

In September 1999, SLAF jets killed 21 people in a similar daylight raid.

Commenting at the time, in 1999, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said: “We can confirm that 21 civilians were killed consequent to the air strike at Manthuvil junction …The ICRC deplores the fact that the air strikes were carried out in a civilian area.”

The ICRC is yet to comment on the Sencholai bombing.

Sri Lankan authorities are deliberately hampering efforts to investigate the murder of 17 aid workers, some of whose relatives blame the military, the chief international truce monitor on the island said on Saturday, August 12.

“I have experienced this in the Balkans before. When you’re not let in, it’s a sign that there’s something they want to hide,” retired Maj. Gen. Ulf Henricsson, who heads the unarmed Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission (SLMM) told Reuters.

Relatives of some of the 17 Action Contre La Faim (ACF) staff shot dead execution-style in Muttur town last week blamed Sri Lankan security forces for the killings.

The international community, from the United States to the United Nations, demands a transparent investigation into one of the worst massacres of aid workers in living memory.

But the Sri Lankan government is denying Nordic truce monitors access to the site, Reuters quoted the SLMM chief as saying.

“You have a lot of time to clear it up. If there was clear evidence for the LTTE to have done it, why not let us in to see it? I think the government makes the situation worse for themselves, because the truth will come out,” Henricsson said.

“They are denying us access to the whole area, so we cannot monitor. There were journalist trips arranged to Mutur last Saturday and Sunday. That was possible, but we had no access. Why? For security reasons? Of course not. There are other reasons.”

Henricsson’s monitors say there is evidence that troops have been involved in extrajudicial killings of Tamils in the war-ravaged north and east.

15 of the ACF staff had been found dead on the floor of their ruined office, while two had been gunned down while apparently trying to escape in a car. In the office, the bodies, clad in ACF T-shirts, had bullet wounds and most of them lay face down.

All except one, a Muslim, were Tamils.

The Sri Lanka Army accused the LTTE, but diplomats are sceptical, Reuters reported.

“All of our initial information suggests the government was involved,” the news agency quoted one western diplomat as saying. “The government’s only option is to have a full independent investigation with international support.”

The father of one aid worker said another son was amongst five Tamil students shot, also execution-style by Sri Lankan commandos in Trincomalee earlier this year.

“We believe it was the army,” 50-year-old Richard Arulrajah, another parent whose 24 year-old son was among those shot dead, told Reuters.

“They said the LTTE came and told them to leave,” said Arulrajah, who believed the Tigers would not have killed the ethnic Tamil workers. “They said: We are leaving this place so you must also leave or we can do nothing to protect you.”

Joining the rest of the humanitarian community in condemning of the massacre of the ACF staff, the Tamil Rehabilitation Organisation (TRO) said the failure to investigate and punish those responsible for attacks on its own aid workers in the past had contributed to a climate of impunity.

Ten TRO staff members were kidnapped by Army-backed paramilitaries in Batticaloa district on January 30, 2006. Three were released, but the other seven have ‘disappeared’ and many believe they have been killed in custody

Heavy fighting that has raged in Jaffna since August 11 subsided this week allowing an aid ship to travel to the embattled peninsula, but sporadic artillery exchanges continued, reports said.

Hundreds of combatants have been killed in two weeks of intense artillery exchanges and heavy ground fighting. The air and sea supply lines to Jaffna, which had been cut by LTTE shelling, hesitantly opened this week.

Shortages have been rising fast for the roughly half a million people on the army-held peninsula. Some people are eating only one meal a day. A Red Cross-flagged aid ship, carrying food and essential supplies left Colombo on Tuesday evening and will only arrive on Thursday.

The LTTE given security guarantees both for the aid ship and for a smaller ferry that will begin evacuating expatriates from Jaffna with foreign residency or nationality, as well as some aid workers.

The Sri Lanka Air Force has resumed limited flights into the Palaly airbase which had been struck almost daily by LTTE artillery. Civilian flights however remain suspended.

The fighting in Jaffna broke out when the Sri Lanka Army (SLA) began a major offensive at 5.30 on August 11 towards LTTE-held Elephant Pass area, the Tigers said. The Sri Lankan government however blamed the LTTE for starting the fighting.

The LTTE said its forces, throwing back an SLA ground advance , overran the SLA defence lines at Muhamali and then advanced into the High Security Zone. The SLA says it pushed the LTTE back to the front defence lines (FDLs).

There are conflicting casualty reports, but the fighting has made it all but impossible to independently verify tolls.

The Sri Lankan government claimed this week to have killed almost 500 Tigers, but the LTTE says it lost only 88 fighters. Colombo-based diplomats believe LTTE losses are likely to be higher, but say the Army routinely exaggerates its claimed kills.

The Army says it lost 159 soldiers, but defence officials in Colombo told reporters the bodies of 400 soldiers have been brought to the south.

The majority of the casualties have been borne by the SLA’s elite 53 Division. The US-trained Division has now been pulled back for a while to either shelter it from fruther losses or to refresh the division, TamilNet reported.

Several hundred civilians are also feared to have died and more than 160,000 people have fled their homes since the confrontations began on July 21 when the SLA launched a major offensive against the LTTE in Trincomalee.

While both sides say they want peace, diplomats believe both probably still have military objectives they want to achieve. The unarmed Nordic ceasefire monitoring mission has withdrawn most of its staff to the capital, although some remain stuck on Jaffna.

“It is a little more quiet but there is still a lot of shelling,” said outgoing chief truce monitor former Swedish Major General Ulf Henricsson. “I can''t see any military gains on either side... I think there has been too much unnecessary killing and rather big losses on both sides.”

Some diplomats and analysts say the fighting could drag on despite international pressure as the government and Tigers seek the military upper hand before entering peace talks.

“Neither side has got a bloody nose yet to encourage them to talks,” one diplomatic source close to the Norwegian-backed peace process told AFP. “Both will try to see how far they can go (militarily) before agreeing to talks.”

“I don''t think the military has really been able to make that much of a dent on the LTTE''s military capability,” said Nanda Godage, a defence analyst and a former Sri Lankan diplomat.

Godage said the LTTE''s war machinery appeared to be intact despite the heavy losses the military says it inflicted.

Namal Perera, the defence columnist for the Ravaya weekly, said that despite a lull in the fighting this week, the potential for a flare-up was high.

“It looks like the LTTE has still not used their elite units,” Perera said. “They could be kept in reserve for a bigger push.”

Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapakse told diplomats in Colombo Monday that his government was ready to resume peace talks which the Tigers put on hold in April 2003 - provided the Tigers halted their attacks (see page 1).

“What the president says is that we have not started a war and we want to talk and have a negotiated settlement,” government spokesman Keheliya Rambukwella said. “But we will not compromise national security.”

Responding to President Mahinda Rajapakse’s call for the LTTE to declare its commitment to the ceasefire, the head of the LTTE’s Political Wing, Mr. S. P. Thamilchelvan said that it was the Colombo government which launched a major military offensive in Trincomalee and thereby triggered defensive measures by the Tigers.

“The Norwegian facilitators and the SLMM monitors are witness to the fact that Colombo deliberately chose to launch an offensive in Maavil Aru despite the civil dispute being resolved peacefully,” Mr. Thamilchelvan said.

The Sri Lankan military said its offensive on July 21 in Maavil Aru was to open a sluice gate that had been closed in LTTE-controlled areas, blocking water to villages in government-controlled areas of the district.

The SLA offensive triggered an LTTE counter-offensive in Muttur, close to Trincomalee’s main harbour. The fighting and Sri Lankan shelling of LTTE areas displaced tens of thousands.

However, when Nowegian Special Envoy Jon Hanssen-Baur negotiated an end to the water dispute and international monitoring chief Ulf Henricsson went to open the gate, SLA artillery fired dozens of shells at his party.

The LTTE charges the water dispute was an excuse for Sri Lanka to launch a major offensive against its forces in Muttur east and Sampur in Trincomalee.

“The Sri Lankan military has a long-term hidden agenda which underpinned its decision to launch a large-scale offensive with massive firepower into our territory in Muthur East,” Mr. Thamilchelvan charged.

“This was evidenced in repeated airstrikes on the region for some considerable time, even before the water dispute emerged,” he added.

“Furthermore, although the Sri Lankan government claimed the purpose of the offensive was to restor ethe flow of water, the Sri Lankan military continued its offensive even after the gates were opened,” he said.

“These actions clearly proved that Colombo had wider objectives behind its military offensive.”

“And when the Sri Lankan military escalated their offensive from their Trincomalee naval base, we were forced respond towards that their launchpads for artillery fire and troop movement towards the frontline,” Mr. Thamilchelvan said.

Thamilchelvan also accused Colombo of escalating its military offensive and attacking the LTTE in the Batticaloa and Jaffna districts.

“In Jaffna, heavy weapons and troop movements were observed in Eluthumadduval, Kilali, Nagarkovil and Muhamali areas throughout the day on August 11. The movement of civilian traffic was restricted to assist the Sri Lankan military buildup.”

“Finally, at 5:40 p.m. that day, the Sri Lanka Army launched a major offensive towards our area across the Northern defence lines, in another major breach of the ceasefire.”

“However, our fighting forces, well aware of the impending Sri Lankan offensive, were prepared to face the confrontation and defeated it,” LTTE political head said.