As Sri Lanka’s government continues to keep the A9 highway, the sole supply route to the Jaffna peninsula closed, media there is complaining of an acute shortage of newsprint and ink.

The shortage has forced the publishers of Tamil dailies to drastically reduce the number of pages in each edition and the number of copies published.

Customers at a Jaffna store read a displayed copy of Uthayan newspaper. Photo TamilNet.

Civil society activists say the shortage is deliberately introduced by the Sri Lanka government as part of its campaign to deny Jaffna residents free access to information from independent sources. This is a serious form of curtailing media freedom, the activists say.

The International Independent Journalist Organization and Sri Lanka Organization for Freedom of Expression in Jaffna sent letters to the ambassadors of Sri Lanka’s main donor countries and international media groups protesting the issue.

The closure of the A9 highway by the SLA in August 2006 and the reluctance of the Commissioner of Essential Services to ship printing materials has together lead to the current acute shortage of news print and ink, newspaper publishers in the peninsula said.

The Tamil dailies Uthayan, Yarl Thinakural and Valampuri are the only sources of news and information to the public in the absence of radio or television stations in Jaffna peninsula.

The Uthayan, which enjoys the highest circulation, has reduced its number of copies from 22,000 to 7,500, reducing the number of pages from 16 to 4.

Soon Uthayan will be forced to run only 2 pages and before long the paper may be forced to shut down, staff at Uthayan said.

Yarl Thinakural and Valmpuri also face a similar bleak future.

People eager to read news papers and unable to buy a copy, flock in front of tea stalls and shops where a single copy of the daily paper is kept for public view.

Meanwhile, Jaffna residents have also been cut off from other sources as telephone lines to the northern peninsula were cut last week.

Telephone lines to Tamil Tiger (LTTE)-controlled Vanni and most of Jaffna were cut on January 27.

Since then only a section of telephone numbers (around 1500 of around 8000 lines), were working in Jaffna.

Vanni, without celluar link, remained completely cut off for communication.

Financial transactions in many bank branches are paralysed and fundamental services such as hospital ambulances, civil services and media, dependent on telephone communication are being disrupted.

Sri Lanka Army (SLA) soldiers went to Vavuniya Telecom and had instructed the technicians to accompany them towards the communication exchange at Madukanda and shut down the telephone link to Vanni and most of the lines to Jaffna.

With the only land route to the peninsula being severed since August, telephone was the only means of communication within Jaffna as well with the rest of the country and international community.

Although the SLT gave ‘technical failure’ as the official explanation for the lines being cut off, no reason was provided for the delay or inability to fix the problem.

The Sri Lankan military establishment has earlier cut off telephone links during military operations.

The Human Rights Commission (SLHRC) said its Vavuniya office had received complaints relating to the disappearances of 41 people in the past three weeks in the Sri Lanka Army (SLA) -dominated town.

An international truce monitor examines the bodies of two youth abducted in Sri Lanka Army-controlled Vavuniya. Photo TamilNet.

A total of 104 complaints have been filed, including death threats, intimidation, and arrests by the security forces.

54 complaints are related to threats to life and intimidation, and 9 are on arrests. 15 of these complaints are against the SLA and the police.

There had been 39 complaints in the first week of January, 37 in the second and 28 in the third week.

HRC officials said that they are investigating the disappearances but often face hurdles beyond their control, in reference to difficulties in investigating abuses by the security forces.

The only Tamil member of the Urban Council in the predominantly Muslim region of Kinniya in Trincomalee district was shot and killed January 26 the latest of a number of Tamil politicians assassinated by Army-backed paramilitaries.

Mr. Thangarajah Ithayarajah, a member of the Ilankai Thamil Arasu Kadchi (ITAK), the name under which the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) contested the local government elections, was killed while he was on his way to Kinniya from his village, Alankerni.

A friend of Mr. Ithayarajah was wounded in the shooting.

Mr. Ithayarajah, a father of two, was shot and killed by gunmen at Idiman, on the border between Tamil and Muslim areas, when he parked his motorbike near a shop with his friend.

The gunmen had followed them to the shop. The assassins escaped on the motorbike after shooting the politician in the Army controlled area.

The killing comes three months after the assassination of the only Tamil TNA member of the Sinhala dominated Seruvila Pradeshaia Saba in the same district.

Kopalasundaram Pathmakalapan, 26, who was the only TNA member of the nine member Seruvila Pradesiya Sabha was shot dead on October 30.

Meanwhile, 10 Tamil members who had won the Trincomalee Urban Council have received death threats, Tricomalee District Tamil parliamentarian, K. Thurairatnasingham told reporters

He blamed the Sri Lankan security forces.

Mr. Thurairatnasingha charged that the assassinations and death threats were part of a planned terror-campaign with a political agenda by the forces that seek to suppress the democratic representation of Tamils in Trincomalee district.

In the elections held at the end of March 2006, The TNA alliance party ITAK won one seat each in Kinniya UC, Seruvila PS, Morawewa PS, Kantalai PS, and two in Thamplakamam PS, three in Kuchchaveli PS and four in Muttur PS in addition to capturing power in the Trincomalee UC with 10 seats, Trincomalee Town and Gravets PS with 6 seats and Verugal PS, uncontested, with 7 seats.

28 January

● Eighteen Tamils were arrested by the Police during a cordon and search operation at Soysapuram in Moratuwa (see separate report, p10).

● Unidentified persons activated a claymore device in front of Valvetti Peoples' Bank, in Vadamaradchi, Jaffna, targeting a SLA road patrol unit, killing one trooper and injuring two. However, there was no official confirmation from the SLA. The SLA launched a cordon and search operation surrounding the area where the attack took place.

● The body of a youth, with hands and legs bound, and with severe bodily injuries, was recovered from a derelict well in an abandoned plot of land near Murugamoorthy Temple at Chankanai in Valigamam west, Jaffna. He was later identified as Balasingham Sriskanth, 27, of Thenirkuliyaldy in Sandilipay. He had been missing for several days. Instances of dead bodies of abducted youths being dumped during curfew hours in the nights have increased at an alarming rate in the Jaffna peninsula.

● Balasubramaniam Mathanaseelan, 17, a school boy from Samarabahu in Valvettithurai, Jaffna, was arrested by the SLA and is listed as missing.

● Sivarasa Sabesan, 23, a young family man from Kambarmalai in Valvettithurai, Jaffna, arrested by the SLA is reported missing. Mrs Sabesan said in a complaint to the SLHRC that the SLA troopers fired guns in the air to threaten the witnesses when they forcibly took her husband away.

● Jeyakumaran Mayooran, a young farmer from Mootha Vinyagar Temple area in Karaveddy, Nelliyady, was arrested by SLA troopers who arrived in military vehicles. His family members said that when they inquired at the SLA camp in Nelliady, the officials denied arresting Mayooran.

● Fourteen civilians were arrested within the Jaffna municipal council area for curfew violation and detained until 9 February in Jaffna prison under protective custody. Chief Justice Sarath N Silva ordered the Jaffna region SLA commander to strictly enforce the overnight curfew, as there had been many complaints of murders, robberies, abduction and arrests during curfew hours. Mr Silva also instructed that anyone arrested for curfew violation was to be produced before courts.

● Unidentified persons in a van abducted Arumugam Kumar, 17, of Mylambavali in Vipulanantha Kiramam, Eravur, while he was engaged in tarring a road in the area with several others.

27 January

● The SLN claimed three to five attack boats entered the outer harbour waters of Colombo Harbour and launched attacks on SLN vessels. Big explosions were heard, according to the crew members of a cargo ship. SLN claimed to have attacked and destroyed 3 "suspicious boats" moving towards restricted waters off Colombo. The navy said nine people had been arrested in connection with the attack. However, the All Ceylon Fisheries Union (ACFU) later contradicted the military and said the Navy had fired on fishing boats and arrested fishermen. An alleged black out on news had censored details of an attack said to have destroyed four Sri Lankan vessels in Colombo Harbour. A flotilla of five attack boats and four explosions were registered by eyewitnesses. The LTTE has not commented on the incident.

● Eight Sri Lankan STF commandos were killed and 12 wounded at Thangavelauthapuram in Thirukkovil division of Amparai district where a STF vehicle was ambushed with claymore attack and gunfire. The attack, believed to be carried out by an elite guerrilla unit of the LTTE, had targeted the STF logistics supply to STF personnel in areas vacated by the Tigers.

● The Jaffna SLA high command in Palaly announced in a media communiqué that the night curfew already in place in the peninsula will be very strictly imposed effective immediately. Along main roads in Jaffna, SLA vehicles using loudspeakers announced violators of curfew hours will be arrested and subjected to legal action.
Cash, jewellery and properties costing many millions of rupees have been robbed recently, mainly from houses in Jaffna town, Nallur and Chunnakam which are within the direct surveillance of the SLA, and during curfew hours. The armed robbers, in white vans and on foot, move about with ease despite the presence of SLA troopers in these areas.

● The body of a youth with deep cut wounds was recovered in Valikamam, Jaffna. The victim had been abducted earlier from another area of the peninsula, brought to Chunnakam area by armed men in a white van and dumped outside Kantharodai Vidyalayam. The seriously injured youth was fighting for his life when the attackers left him but witnessing residents fearing for their own lives did not come forward to assist him. Due to the night curfew and restrictions on the movement of civilians imposed by the SLA, the youth remained on the road through the night, dying during that time.

● Muniyandi Selvanayagam, from Belmadulla area in Ratnapura, 43, was shot dead by gunmen in front of Nelliady Madhya Maha Vidyalayam along Nelliady-Vathiri road in Vadamaradchy. Gunmen brought the victim to the area on a motor-bike and shot him dead at point blank range before escaping. Unconfirmed reports said that the victim was an intelligence operative working with the SLA.

● An LTTE cadre was killed during retaliatory gunfire by STF soldiers on a group of LTTE cadres who attacked the STF camp in Murunkan area. The Police handed over the body of the unidentified Tamil youth, estimated to be 20, to Mannar base hospital. Murunkan Police said STF personnel had recovered a T 56 pistol, four magazines with 139 bullets, and first aid medicine from the scene of attack.

26 January

● Indika Gunawardene,19, a Sinhala passenger on the Mannar Colombo bus, was killed when Sri Lankan police opened fire after a group of attackers launched a gunfire-ambush killing a Sub-Inspector of Police at a police post, southeast of Mannar town. Two other civilians seated in the bus, were wounded. The Police Sub-Inspector killed in the gunfire was identified as Senaratne, 45.

● Thirty-eight persons, majority of them natives of North-East, were arrested in a cordon and search operation in Hambantota town in the southern province by the three Sri Lanka armed forces and Police in the lead up to the International Development Conference in Galle.]

● Police recovered the body of the building contractor reported missing since Monday in Pannakam area, with hands bound and with cut wounds. The family man from Katudai in Manipay was identified as Veerasingham Ratnasingham, 35, who had not been seen after he left to the Agriculture Department in Nallur, Jaffna.

● Sathiaraj Mohanaram, 22 from Kachcheri- Nallur road in Jaffna, his relative Kanthasamy Satheeskanna, 34, from Manipay road in Jaffna and Thiraviyanathan Thiraviyaventhan from Ukkulankulam in Vavuniya were arrested from a house at Kachcheri-Nallur road. Family members of said SLA troopers arrested the youths at gun point from their house and that they have seen the same SLA troopers in SLA road check posts.

25 January

● A sailor was injured when attackers, who were waiting in two boats, fired at the SLN in Thalvupadu in Mannar. The exchange of gunfire lasted for 10 minutes. Police charged that the attackers were Sea Tigers. A SLN sailor was wounded and rushed to Mannar hospital.

● Kopay police recovered the body of a man abducted from Inuvil east the previous day by armed men in a white van. The victim, whose entire body except the face was scorched, was identified as Nagenthiram Arumaithasan, 32, a broker dealing in motor cycles. Arumaithasan's wife was able to identify her husband as his face was still identifiable. They had been married for one year. The family man from Inuvil east in Valigamam, near Inuvil Illanthali Amman Temple, was found near Urumpirai Temple area, nearly 4 km away from the place of abduction. The abductors had either shot dead or stabbed him to death before dousing his body with petrol and setting fire to it.

● Kankesan Mayooran, 21, a youth from Kachcheri-Nallur road in Jaffna, was reported missing on his way to the Commercial Bank in Jaffna town.

● Gunmen shot dead a postman at Pathinipuram in Trincomalee district. Subramaniam Muruganantharuban, 34, attached to the Postal Department, Trincomalee, was engaged in door-to-door delivery when gunmen shot him at point blank range and escaped.

● Mathugama police arrested three upcountry Tamil youths who had gone to Mathugama from Galle to their relatives' house. Nagaratnam, 25, Raveenthran, 24, Loganathan, 25, all from Divuthara estate in Elpitiya police division were the yuths arrested on suspicion of assisting the LTTE.

● S. Parthipan, 22 and Madasamy Navaneethan, 18, from Maskeliya were arrested at Wenapuwa bus stand on suspicion of assisting Liberation Tigers, and were detained for investigation.

24 January

● SLA troopers imposed a new rule, banning the entry of bicycles and motor cycles in the Central Business Area of Jaffna town, and instructed the public to park their two-wheelers at a spot 400 meters from the town.

● A youth from Vadamaradchy surrendered at the Jaffna office of the SLHRC bringing the total number of civilians surrendered since August to 42. The youth had been seriously injured in a shooting incident in Rajakiramam Nelliady, Karaveddy two weeks previously and had been in hospital since.

23 January

● Thavarajah Poopathi, 50, from Katkuli Road, Chavakachcheri, Jaffna, was killed and sixteen other civilians wounded, seven of them seriously, when a bomb hidden in a motorbike exploded inside the Chavakachcheri town area. The wounded were identified as R. Rajakumar, 26, N. Rajaladchumy, 40, of Chavakacheri, A. Sooriyakumar, 31, from Chavakacheri, T. Jesintha, 32, of Ariyalai, K. Dinosan, 16, S. Yogananthan, 47, of Chavakacheri, K. Rajendran, 30, from Chavakacheri, M. Jeyarasa, 64, of Kaithady, A. K. Kumarasamy, 64, of Meesalai, V. Sanjithkumar, 19, K. Rajathurai, 57, of Meesalai, Mary Mohan, 60 from Atchuveli, T. Thushyanthan, 23, M. Mohanathas, 27, of Chavakacheri, and S. Mathanamohan, 26, from Chavakacheri. One SLA trooper was killed and another six allegedly injured in the explosion, but SLA Military Command has not confirmed injuries.

● Six Tamil youths who were in Chavakachcheri town were reported missing after SLA troopers launched an extensive search and cordon operation in the town, arresting and releasing more than one hundred youths, following the bomb.

● Five civilians walking along Karainagar road in Manipay, Jaffna, were injured when a bomb hidden by the road side exploded. There was no SLA vehicle at the spot when the explosion took place. One of the injured died later in hospital. The explosion took place amidst increasing number of disappearances of youths and school students, many abducted during curfew hours.

● An unidentified youth was shot dead during a confrontation with SLA troops in Ilukanawaththa, Ellankulam area in Vadamaradchchy. The youth is alleged to have lobbed a grenade at the troops patrolling in the area resulting in an exchange of fire between the troops and the youth. Two abandoned houses in the area from where the youth is said to have carried out the attack were completely demolished by the troops and materials were taken for further investigation.

● Gunmen shot and injured four employees of the Road Development Authority (RDA) in Vavuniya, and abducted three workers at Ulukkulam, while the workers were on their way to Vavuniya in a private van. The abductors, who were in a car, stopped the workers’ van, and allowed the Muslim driver to go. The gunmen fired at the workers when four tried to escape, injuring them. All the workers were wearing the RDA uniform. Details of the 3-disappeared workers are not known. The injured in their statement to Vavuniya Police said the abductors were all Tamil speaking.

● Eravur Police recovered the bullet-riddled bodies of two Tamil men dumped in the bushes in Savukkady, Batticaloa. They were identified as Selliah Janachchandran, 23, of Vipulanantha Road, Valaichchenai and Selvarajah Sriskantharajah, 24, of Trinco Road, Mankerny. Both men had gone to Batticaloa town the previous night to obtain insurance for a vehicle and disappeared en route. Savukkady residents alleged that the youths were shot by paramilitary personnel working with the SLA.

22 January

● The body of Daniel Santharupan, 30, a disabled man abducted allegedly by SLA soldiers in broad day light at Thettkiyalady in Chunnakam, Valigamam, on January 16, was found with severe cut wounds near the same area.

● Sittampalam Puvanendran, 46, from Eachamottai in Chundukuli area within the Jaffna Municipal boundary, was taken by more than six armed Sinhala speaking men who visited his home. The abductors said they were taking Puvanendran for investigations and took him on foot. The abductors assaulted relatives and neighbours, and fired warning shots in the air, when they tried to stop the men from taking Puvanendran.

● SLA soldiers went to the house of Velayutham Emil Pramitan, 26, and took him away after interrogating his father and brothers. Pramitan owned a radio repair shop in Jaffna town. An SLA camp is about 350 meters from the home.

● Vavuniya police recovered two bodies, hands bound with cloth, with bullet wounds in Thavasikulam area in Vavuniya. The Police said the bodies were found in the same spot where bodies of three Tamil civilians were found Friday, and speculated revenge may have been the motive. No identity documents were found in possession of the two dead men. Police said both appear to be around 25-years, and are from Kuliyapitty area in Kurunagala.

● Manager of the Vavuniya Peoplised Transport Board and former member of the People's Liberation Orginisation of Tamil Eelam (PLOTE) , Tharmakulasingham, 46, alias 'Thambi', was shot dead. Armed men on a motorbike shot him at Pandarikkulam while he was returning home from work.

● SLAF Kfir jets bombed Kadavanaikulam, Trincomalee. The SLA also launched artillery shelling from Jayapura and Moraweva SLA camps.

● Sri Lanka Police and members of the STF jointly cordoned off and conducted a door-to-door search in Kirankulam village, Batticaloa. The Police detained nearly 50 persons but released them after intensive interrogation. People who travelled along the main trunk road too were subjected to severe scrutiny. The five-hour long operation created tension in the area, with most residents prevented from travelling to their place of work.

● Four Muslim family men missing since January 15 from Omadiamadu jungle in Valaichenai, Batticaloa, where they had gone to collect firewood, returned home. The men were held at the Welikanda SLA headquarters. SLA troopers who had been hiding in the jungle area prior to their offensive on Vaharai had arrested the four men and had handed them over to the Wellikanda SLA camp.

● Five upcountry Tamil civilian passengers were injured when a group of Sinhalese hoodlums attacked a State owned passenger bus in Udathanna in Matale, while the funeral of a SLA soldier killed in a Vaharai military operation against the LTTE was taking place. The attackers ordered the Tamil passengers to get down from the bus, and beat them with poles, seriously injuring two of the passengers. SLA soldiers on security duty close by stood by and did not interfere. At least two female passengers were injured, reports said.

● Twelve Tamil youths arrested on suspicion and detained in four police stations in Colombo were suddenly transferred to Boosa Detention Camp in Galle (see separate report, p10).

Over 600 Tamils were arrested in Colombo and its environs over the past two weeks as Sri Lanka’s security forces stepped up their cordon and search operations ahead of the country’s 59th Independence Day celebrations on Feb 4.

Over 550 Tamil people were arrested in the week ending on Sunday, Sri Lankan Independence Day.

More than 300 persons, majority of them Tamils, were arrested during a combined cordon and search operation in the Fort and Pettah areas of Colombo on February 4 itself.

The Colombo Magistrate Monday allowed an application by the police to send those arrested in cordon and search operations conducted in Fort and Pettah in Colombo on Saturday and Sunday to the notorious Boosa detention camp located in the southern province.

On Saturday, 266 Tamils, including53 women, were arrested in a dawn to noon house-to-house search operation by hundreds of police and armed troops in Fort area and its surrounds.

Of them about 70 were held overnight, with the rest released after inquiry.

Most of the arrested were permanent residents of Jaffna district, living in Colombo now.

Police said the suspects had been arrested when they failed to prove their identities and the reasons for their presence in their location. They are being held in police stations for interrogation.

Vehicles garaged in houses and business establishment were also searched during the operation.

They were interrogated following the recovery of a claymore mine in a three-wheeler during the search operation at Maligawatte on Saturday.

Eleven civilians, mostly Tamils, were arrested in a house-to-house cordon and search operation by the Sri Lankan security forces in Nugegoda, a suburb of Colombo on January 30.

The arrested civilians allegedly failed to produce necessary documents to prove their identity, and to provide plausible explanation for their presence in the area.

On the same day, another 27 civilians including three women, majority of them Tamils, were arrested in Colombo north during a search operation on vehicles plying between Kandy and Colombo.

About 1500 vehicles were subjected to severe checks and travellers were interrogated.

The previous weekend, 18 Tamils, including 11 women, were arrested during a cordon and search operation in houses and lodges at Soysapuram in Moratuwa. More than 700 Tamils were interrogated during the cordon and search operation.

On January 25, another eleven Tamils were taken into custody during a cordon and search operation in Dehiwela in Colombo.

Most of those arrested were aged between 25 and 40, and had been staying in Dehiwela with relatives and friends. They were also mainly natives of districts in the North-East.

On January 23, a female Tamil passenger of a train bound for Galle from Colombo was arrested on a tip off that explosives were hidden in a compartment.

The train was stopped at Ratmalana and each passenger was thoroughly searched. Nearly two thousand passengers were in the train at that time.

The operation lasted for about four hours, but no explosives were found in the train.

It was not clear why people were kept on board for all that time, given the official reason for the search that explosives were on the train.

04 February

● More than 300 people, majority of them Tamils, were arrested during a cordon and search operation in Colombo (see separate report).

● Pushparajah Navaneerathan, 27, was shot dead by armed men on a motorbike near his house in Thuwarakandu, Chelvanayakapuram, Trincomalee.

● SLA soldiers shot dead a Tamil youth in Maniarasankulam, Kinniya, in Trincomalee district, and claim the victim was an LTTE cadre. The SLA said they recovered a communication set and food items near the body.

● SLA troopers and Liberation Tigers exchanged artillery and mortar fire near Thenmaradchy FDL near Muhamalai. Two shells fell within the Usan SLA camp at behind the FDL position. Another shell fired by the Liberation Tigers exploded in areas close to Usan and Mirusuvil SLA camps, causing minor injuries to two civilians. Though residents close to the SLA camps had moved out of their residences when clashes erupted between the SLA and the LTTE last year, some had returned to their houses.

● Murunkan Police reported exchange of gunfire between a road patrol of Police commandos and a group of Liberation Tiger cadres at Pannavedduvan, Mannar. The police said a Tiger cadre was killed and that the Tigers had taken the body of their dead cadre, but claimed to have located a T-56 automatic rifle after the clash. Five hours later, the SLA fired artillery shells towards LTTE controlled Arippu.

● A Sri Lanka Police constable sustained serious injuries when armed men hurled hand grenades at the police sentry point in Thonikkal, Vavuniya.

● A civilian was injured in a hand grenade explosion near Pandarikulam Muniyappar Temple in Vavuniya.

● The SLA cordoned off Vankalai area and the brigade commander of Thalladay SLA camp addressed around 4000 Tamil Catholics gathered for Sunday mass at St. Anne's Church, instructing them to inform on any strangers seen in the area.

● The body of a male was found in a road-side drain along Green Road in the centre of Trincomalee town, bearing injuries and covered with dried coconut leaves.

● Four civilian commuters travelling on a Trincomalee bound Colombo train were taken into custody during a search of the train by Sri Lanka security forces. Police said the suspects were in possession of documents for about 90 vehicles, but the ethnicity of the suspects was not revealed.

● Pushparajah Navaneerathan, 27, was shot dead by armed men on a motorbike near his house in Thuwarakandu, Chelvanayakapuram, Trincomalee.

03 February

● An armed person shot dead Sahathevan Vijayakumar, 38, a father of two children, at his mother's house at Aiyankerni, Batticaloa. Vijayakumar, a daily labourer from Nagathambiran Kovil road in Aiyankerni, used to spend the nights at his mother's house and was shot by a killer who was waiting for him when he went to close the compound gate.

● Fifteen Tamil youths were arrested in Wennapuwa, coastal town in the western province during a cordon and search operation by the government security forces. Most of the arrested are natives of Batticaloa district who found employment in the area. Police said that they took the youths into custody when they failed to prove their identity and the purpose of their stay in Wennapuwa.

● 266 Tamils were arrested in a search operation in Colombo (see separate report).

● Rajeswaran Senthooran, 22, a native of Mallavi in Vanni and an auto-rickshaw driver, was dead by gunmen riding two motorbikes at Kulumadu junction in Vavuniya.

02 February

● The Legal Advisor of the Jaffna SLHRC, Mudiyapu Remedias, registered a complaint with the Jaffna Commanding Officer of SLA that he was severely assaulted by a group of SLA soldiers near Stanley Road in Jaffna Town, despite his presenting his credentials as the Legal Officer working for the SLHRC.

● S. Surenthirarajah, the Jaffna Co-ordinating Officer of the SLHRC registered a complaint with Jaffna police that he has been subjected to continuous threats to his life. Mr. Surenthirarajah said that a person alleged to be the member of a "political party" had threatened him with a weapon and made several phone calls warning him. He has also mentioned that these threats to life and intimidations are being made due to the prominent role the Jaffna SLHRC takes in investigating, and exposing the continuing arrests, disappearances and killings in the Jaffna peninsula. Already, two Coordinating Officers working for the Jaffna SLHRC vacated their posts and had sought asylum in Canada because they were assaulted by the police when they went to the Jaffna police station to register complaints against the threats to their lives. A Sinhalese Coordinating Officer also vacated his post because of the continuous threats to his life and to Surenthirarajah.

● The Police recovered the body of Sinniah Palaniappan, 59, along the sea beach in Pulmoddai, Trincomalee. Injuries were found on the body.

01 February

● The President of the Jaffna Multi Pupose Co-Operative Society (MPCS) and an active social worker in the Jaffna Peninsula, S. T. Gananathan, 64, was shot dead near Mampalam junction SLA camp in Ariyalai, a suburb of Jaffna. Mr. Gananathan went to fetch water from a well close to his house in Punkankulam, along A-9 highway, when he was assassinated by two armed men about 200 metres from Mampalam junction SLA camp.

● Residents of Rasa Veethy, Kopay found the body of Jeyakumar Mayooran, 27, near the Martyrs Resting Home on that road. His family members had earlier complained to the Jaffna SLHRC that he had been abducted by SLA soldiers while riding his motorcycle near Nallur temple. The body had signs of torture and gunshot injuries. Residents said they heard vehicles moving and gunshots the previous night from the area where the body was found. Mayooran's hand phone and motorcycle are missing.

● Chinabay Police recovered the body of an unidentified male person with gunshot injuries at Kandalayweduwan in Upparu village, Trincomalee. The victim, aged about thirty, had been murdered elsewhere and dumped in Kandalayweduwan.

● Fifty six Tamil civilians including two women were arrested in a combined cordon and search operation by Sri Lanka forces in Uppuveli division, Trincomalee. Most of them are residents of Allesgarden and are detained in Uppuveli police station.

● Two Sri Lanka Police were injured in a grenade attack on a police post at Pandarikkulam in Vavuniya. The policemen were on guard at a mini police camp when they were attacked.

● A SLA soldier was killed when a foot patrol was hit by claymore attack at Maharambaikkulam, in Vavuniya.

31 January

● Seven police constables, three army personnel and a civilian were killed and seven army personnel, five policemen and three civilians injured in claymore attack in Batticaloa. The claymore mine was triggered along the roadside near the Eastern University premises targeting a bus transporting army and police personnel. 55 people, including 25 undergraduates and university employees, were arrested by Eravur police after the blast. The arrested, including three female undergraduates, were detained at Eravur police station for further questioning. After the bomb blast, the SLA cordoned off the university premises, and campus staff and students were allowed to leave only after an extensive search.

● Vavuniya Police recovered two bodies with gunshot wounds in Maharambaikulam, Vavuniya. The bodies were identified as belonging to Singaram Santhakumar, 28, and Veeraiya Logeswaran, 28. These latest killings bring the number of homicides in Vavuniya during the first month of the year to 59, of whom 9 are SLA soldiers, 8 Sri Lanka Police, 6 alleged members of the LTTE, and the remaining 36 are civilians, 4 of whom as Sinhalese.

● Vijayakumar, 55, a trader dealing in foreign exchange and money transactions, residing at Perera Lane in Wellawatte was abducted by armed men in a white van near Perera Lane as he was returning home. He is a cousin of Professor K. Sivathamby.

● Yogaraj Mathanraj, who had come to Colombo from Jaffna and been staying at a lodge in George R. De Silva Mawathe in Kotahena, was abducted by armed men in a white van. Kotahena police had arrested Mathanaraj on suspicion and as he was returning to his lodge after being interrogated by the police, armed men in a white van abducted Mathanraj near Kotahena police station.

30 January

● Jaffna police recovered the body of a youth aged around 23, at Arukaalmadam area in the Jaffna Municipality limits with gunshot injuries. They suspect he was abducted elsewhere earlier, brought to Arukaalmadam, and shot dead.

● Gunmen shot dead a disabled civilian at Rajakiramam, Karaveddy in Vadamarachchy, Jaffna. Pirammiah Tharmaseelan, 32, a family man, was at his home when gunmen approached his house, called him out, shot and escaped. Mr. Tharmaseelan has already lost an arm and a leg in an earlier shell attack.

● Armed men in a white van forcibly abducted Rajamanoharan Suthaharan, 34, from his house on Railway Station Road in Kondavil, Jaffna, and took him away.

● SLA troopers arrested Ramachandran Rajeevan, 24, of Thavady, Jaffna, while he was playing in the Thavady Pathirakali Amman Temple grounds and he has been missing since.

● Chelliah Kajendran of Ainthu Vembadi area at Thavady in Kokuvil, Jaffna, has been missing after he was arrested by the SLA.

● Thambirasa Thamayanthan from School road in Annaikottai, arrested on 10 January by the SLA, was reported missing by his family members.

● The body of Gunaratnam Gajendran, 30, of Suthumalai North, Manipay, was discovered in Arukalmadam with visible marks of severe torture and cut wounds. Gunaratnam, employed in a business establishment in Jaffna, disappeared a week earlier while returning home.

● Unidentified persons shot dead Tharman, a fifty-year old Tamil farmer at Aathimoddai, a suburb of Sambaltivu village, Trincomalee.

● SLA and SLAF soldiers and police conducted a combined cordon and search operation in Morawewa, Trincomalee following a mortar attack on the SLAF camp in Morawewa by LTTE cadres. Military reports from Colombo said there were no casualties on the security side and that Government forces had successfully retaliated the attack.

● 38 civilians, majority of them Tamils, were arrested in Colombo north (see separate report).

● A SLA trooper was killed in a bomb blast at Kathiraveli in the SLA seized Vaharai area in Batticaloa during duty time.

29 January

● Two policemen and a civilian were injured when unidentified men hurled a hand grenade at a police post at Soosaipillaiyar Kulam in Vavuniya. Another civilian working in a near by garage was injured when police opened up with retaliatory fire.
The civilian injured in the grenade blast was identified as Dhanabala, a driver working at the Vavuniya secretariat.

● Armed men on a motorcycle shot and seriously injured an employee of Jaffna University at Nayanmarkattu in Nallur. Muthu Peter, 29, father of one, a native of Navatkuli in Thenmaradchi and a resident of Nachimarkovilady in Jaffna, was rushed to hospital where he succumbed to his wounds. Peter was returning home on motorcycle after visiting his parents in Navatkuli when he was shot.

● Thinesh Ananthan, 24, from 3rd Mile Post in Aanaikottai, arrested by the SLA is reported missing by his relatives.

● More than 600 prospective passengers, planning to travel out of Jaffna by private planes and queuing outside the airline office, turned angry when they were told that only one hundred would be given tokens for issue of air tickets. The irate civilians smashed the windows of the office and caused damages to property inside the building. The civilians later attempted to attack employees but were prevented when a large number of SLA troops arrived at the scene. Several of the civilians were injured when the SLA soldiers attacked the passengers to bring the situation under control.

● A youth from Kokuvil west, Jaffna, surrendered at Jaffna police station fearing danger to his life by unknown armed men. Tharmalingam Ramesh Babu, 22, complained that he has been receiving threats to his life from unknown men and said he feared he will be killed if he stayed at home.

● Unidentified men shot dead a Tamil youth at Anpuvallipuram junction on Trincomalee-Kandy highway, near Trincomalee town. The armed men on a motorbike shot Sriharan Sasinthan at point blank range.

One year after seven staff members of the Tamil Rehabilitation Organization (TRO) disappeared after being abducted in Sri Lanka Army - controlled part of the island’s east, there is still no word of their fate.

However, an investigative report published this week by Tamilweek.com says the missing aid workers were executed by paramilitaries of the Karuna Group which took them captive.

A poster appealing for the release of seven TRO workers abducted by Army-backed paramilitaries. But an investigate news report says they have been killed. Photo TamilNet.

The single woman in the group was gang raped by fourteen gunmen before being killed.

The report, compiled by Tamil columnist D.B.S. Jeyaraj, is based on interviews with former members of the Karuna Group, formally known as the Tamil Makkal Viduthalai Puligal (TMVP).

The TVMP is an anti-LTTE paramilitary group set up by a renegade LTTE commander, Karuna, who defected to the Sri Lankan military after his six-week rebellion was crushed in an LTTE offensive in early 2004.

Five TRO staff travelling from Batticaloa to Kilinochchi through government-controlled territory were abducted on January 29, 2006 near Welikande. Three were subsequently released.

On the following day (30) another TRO vehicle going from Batticaloa to Kilinochchi was hijacked, also at Welikande. Five full time TRO employees and ten trainee recruits were on board. The ten rookies were released later but the other five were not.

Initially, the LTTE was blamed.

Although the TRO has been often accused of being a front organization of the Tigers and many accused the LTTE of ‘staging’ the incidents to provide a plausible excuse to avoid upcoming Norwegian brokered talks in Geneva.

However the Tigers did attend – making their prime demand the disarming of government-backed anti-LTTE paramilitary groups, including the Karuna Group, named after the renegade LTTE commander which heads it.

Later there was a flurry of protests. Several international organisations, including Amnesty International appealed for the TRO workers to be released. Christina Rocca, then US Assistant Secretary of State joined the calls.

However nothing happened.

And in a shocking report published this week, Mr. Jeyarajah says: “the facts that I am privy to indicate that all seven abducted have been killed. The solitary woman among them was painfully gang raped before being killed.”

Amongst the sources for the report are disgruntled ex - members who quit the TMVP in disgust over its conduct and the fact that Karuna cadres were functioning as the ‘running dogs of (Sinhala) Imperialism,’ he says.

Admitting that some of the sources were suspect, he notes however: “it is after many weeks of probing that I venture to re- construct in print the tragic fate that befell the abducted seven.”

The orders for the TRO abductions were issued by Pillaiyan (one name only), who is described as the supreme military commander of the TMVP military wing.

Pillaiyan is said to be the main link between the TMVP and its Sri Lankan military intelligence handlers. He is also the alleged mastermind behind the ongoing abductions of Tamil businesmen for ransom in Colombo.

The team which abducted both TRO vehicles was headed by Sinthujan (alias Pratheepan).

When the first TRO vehicle was stopped on Jan 29, it had five TRO staff: two male (Tamils from the north) and three female (Tamils from the east).

The two men (Kasinathar Ganeshalingam and Kathirgamar Thangarasa) were assaulted and interrogated. Later both were taken out and personally executed by Sinthujan.

Of the three females, two (Ms Punniyamoorthy Nadeswary and Ms Chitravel Sivamathi) were released after interrogation.

The last female, Ms S.Doshini, was found to be a relative of a senior Karuna Group member. Although harshly interrogated by Sitha alias Pradeep the head of TMVP intelligence, she later formed a relationship with him.

According to unconfirmed reports Doshini is now living with Sitha as his ‘common law’ spouse, Tamilweek reported, adding: “She has not been questioned by the authorities so far and is protected by powerful people.”

Sitha gained notoriety after being identified as one of the two gunmen who assassinated Tamil National Alliance (TNA) MP Joseph Pararajasingham on Christmas day in 2005.

Pararajasingham was shot dead near the altar at the St. Mary’s cathedral in Batticaloa partaking of holy communion from Bishop Kingsley Swampillai.

Despite Sri Lanka President Mahinda Rajapakse being appraised, no arrests have been made so far but the witnesses who identified Sitha are now abroad in fear of their lives.

On Jan 30, the second TRO vehicle was ambushed. It contained four staff and eleven newly recruited trainees.

After interrogation, ten of the trainees were released. They were told to conduct the last rites for the five people – four men and one woman - still in custody.

All five were violently interrogated by a team lead by Sitha, who was accompanied by Sinthujan. The men were assaulted and even tortured.

Sitha and his intelligence team left, telling Sinthujan the rest was ‘his responsibility.’

“The four were blindfolded and driven into the interior of the jungle. The men were then forced to walk blind- folded. The blindfolds were removed and they were asked to dig a huge pit. When it was over the weeping men were lined up and shot. TMVP cadres quickly covered up the grave.”

“The fate of Premini was terrible. The dusky woman with attractive features and a slight squint was taken to another camp and raped first by Sinthujan himself.”

“Thereafter it was a horrible gang rape with TMVP cadres taking turns to sexually assault her. Fourteen cadres raped the poor girl. Some troubled TMVP cadres did not participate in the rape but were powerless to stop it.”

Premini was heard to shout and cry at the start. Later she merely sobbed and whimpered.

Premini was taken out before dawn by TMVP cadres to the jungles. She walked like a “nadaipinam” (walking corpse) without crying or showing signs of emotion one ex - TMVP cadre told Mr. Jeyaraj. She was apparently hacked to death and thrown into the bushes.

There has been a massive cover up of the incident, Mr. Jeyaraj says.

Sri Lankan Cabinet ministers accused the TRO of not co-operating thereby implying that the victim organization was at fault.

When TRO employees went to lodge complaints they were treated shabbily as if they were the offenders and not the victims. TRO officials made repeated attempts to contact authorities but were simply ignored.

Mr. Jeyaraj says other incidents are also being covered up.

“I have also heard of one decent Sinhala military intelligence official who tried to probe this [TRO abductions] incident and the massacre of 12 Sinhala workers at Omadhiyamadhu being killed by Karuna cadres themselves,” he says.

Mr. Jeyaraj argued that the accusations the TRO is an LTTE ‘front’ has made it easy to float conspiracy theories against the Tigers.

“The case of Welikande abductions did not receive the attention it should have received because TRO personnel were involved.

“It has been easy to downplay the incidents because the TRO is perceived as a tiger front organization. Even civilian employees of the TRO are treated as terrorist because of suspected LTTE affiliations.”

“There is a crying need for justice here.”

The International Community, while making statements that a military solution is not possible, is either unable to, or unwilling to, exert its formidable muscle to force Colombo out of its current military path.

We would never, under any circumstance, engage militarily and simultaneously enter talks.

The process towards a negotiated settlement can only take place in a environment conducive to talks. The LTTE has been explicitly stated the conditions necessary to create such environment.

The most basic of these conditions were agreed upon and laid down in the Cease Fire Agreement of February 2002.”

Over the last few years the LTTE leadership has been patient and tolerant in sustaining possibilities for Colombo to commit to, and to implement the basic clauses of the CFA agreement.

Our tolerance was aimed at providing space for Colombo to re-engage in the process in a meaningful way. We had repeatedly respected the call by the International Community to be flexible.

But within the 8-months between the Geneva-I talks and Geneva-II, Colombo had transformed the proxy war into a full-scale war.

It is after the Geneva - I talks, when Colombo promised to the International Community to disarm the paramilitaries, as stipulated in the CFA clause 1.8, paramilitary opened the so-called ‘political offices,’ in Batticaloa, Colombo, Amparai and Trincomalee.

This was clearly a counter-tactic to resist the mounting pressure from International community, which had confronted the Government with credible evidence of paramilitary collusion with the Sri Lankan military.”

The paramilitaries even claimed responsibility of carrying out attacks on LTTE posts from their offices.

Assassinations, killings of civilians and forced disappearances by the Sri Lankan military and paramilitary became widespread. Humanitarian agencies were systematically harassed, blocked and threatened with killings and intimidation.

An economic blockade was clamped in the east, and the access routes were closed. Aerial bombardment and shelling targeted civilians, forcing displaced people on foot from place to place with the aim of evicting people from our administrative areas in the East.

Even the civilian and medical refuges were attacked, disregarding the International Law of Armed Conflict.

While the International Community urged the Sri Lankan political leaders to work towards a radical re-configuration of polity with ‘dramatic political changes,’ desist from reneging from the special arrangements supporting the merger of NorthEast, and that a military solution was not possible, Colombo was allowed to pursue exactly the opposite.

Colombo continued to placate the International Community with the appointment of a new All Party Conference, and other committees for investigating killings, and embarked on measures to gain political advantage within the Southern polity by signing MoUs with other parties.

In the process, Colombo, by clever use of its politicized judiciary, rejected the concept of Tamil homeland by nullifying the 18-year merger of Northern and Eastern Province, the ‘International treaty’ crafted by India.

In this backdrop, Tamil people find little comfort in the statements and expression of concerns by the International Community, as Colombo continues its military agenda that has depopulated areas historically inhabited by Tamils, and has brought enormous suffering to the Tamils in the east.

Tamil people increasingly view with skepticism the approach by International Community towards the two protoganists in the Sri Lanka conflict.

They see the approach as unfairly biased against the Liberation Tigers who the Tamils see as the only credible bulwark to safeguard the rights and dignity of Tamil people who have a long history of political struggle for self-determination.

Solid support: President Rajapakse chairs a key aid donors meeting in Galle, southern Sri Lanka on Jan 29, 2007. Teh government claimed $4.5b in new aid. Photo TamilNet.

At the two-day donor review that ended on Jan 31, Sri Lanka’s President Mahinda Rajapakse was emphatic that the country did not want donor funding with strings attached.

But then pledges of 4.5 billion US dollars over the next two years are hard to argue and the government is keen to show that its military campaign has support.

Economist and researcher Muttukrishna Sarvananthan said the government was probably betting on the donors not withholding funds.

"I doubt the donors would hold back funds," Sarvananthan told IPS.

“The Japanese normally do not attach conditions to their aid either on economic liberalisation and reform issues or on the peace front. The Americans are also unlikely to stop aid unless the government goes back on its promise to come up with a (power) devolution package

Much of the pressure on Colombo came from the European Union which sent a low level delegation to the conference. EU chair, Germany, spoke of an aid freeze.

Europe, nevertheless, accounts for only 10 percent of Sri Lanka's annual aid flow and has limited leverage.

The government can pursue its plans as long as the conflict is confined to the Tamil-dominated north and east of the island.

"I think the government can move ahead on economic development in other parts of the country, if it could prevent attacks on economic targets outside the north and east, ‘' Sarvananthan said.

Yet, the donor review was a far cry from the last two meetings in 2003 and 2005, when the ‘peace dividend' was constantly harped upon.

Each of those meets raised more than three billion dollars. The 2003 meeting also resulted in the European Union, Japan, the U.S. and peace facilitators Norway forming the co-chairs of the ‘Tokyo Donor' conference.

At this year's meeting it was made clear that without any tangible progress in peace negotiations, development would be unsustainable and the World Bank took the lead in saying so.

‘'We want to ensure that the money provided by the donors does not fuel the war. There will be less cash if there is no progress on the peace front,'' a diplomat from a Western embassy said, asking not to be named.

But the fact remains that the government has hiked defence spending for 2007 by about 30 percent to touch 1.28 billion dollars.

A five-year-old ceasefire remains on paper as the country has slipped into all out confrontations between government forces and the LTTE.

Since December 2005, some 4,000 people have died in the violence - including more than a thousand civilians.

As government forces steadily regain land under LTTE control, the latter have retaliated with a series of strikes in the south. The country's main port in the capital of Colombo came under attack on Jan. 27 when three militant boats made an attempt to infiltrate.

A similar attack in November was mounted on the southern port of Galle, a major tourist destination and the location for the donor meeting. The day before the Galle attack, 100 sailors died in a suicide attack in the north central city of Habarana, another tourist favourite. During the first week of January twin bus bombs killed more than 20 in the south.

Nervousness was palpable ahead of Sunday's celebrations for the 50th anniversary of Sri Lanka's independence from Britain with massive troop deployments in the capital and rigorous searches of vehicles and raids.

Roads leading to the Galle sea-front, where rehearsals are being held, have been closed to traffic.

Attacks in the Sinhala-dominated south have put pressure on the economy and caused tourist arrivals to slide.

While the government's tough approach may disgruntle donors, many believe that Rajapakse may succeed if he sustains development in the south and puts forward a political solution to the ethnic conflict acceptable to donors - even if it is rejected by the LTTE.

Rajapakse has urged donors to make a disconnect between the war and economic development.

"Our aim in defeating terrorism is to liberate the peoples who have become victims of terrorism. We consider development in liberated regions and in rest of the north and east as critical in promoting sustainable peace and finding meaningful solutions to many potential conflicts within multi-ethnic and multi-religious societies,” he said.

“I have no doubt that our development partners will therefore separate terrorism from a conflict in a complex multicultural society with many income and regional disparities.”

However, donors were quick to point out that without peace any economic progress would be short lived.

"The renewed and deepening conflict in Sri Lanka over the past six months or so looms over everything else that we might say here. There is no way to politely skirt this issue. As a major development partner to Sri Lanka, the World Bank would be failing if we did not place the conflict front and centre in our deliberations," Praful Patel, World Bank Vice President for the South Asia Region, told the donor meeting.

While Rajapakse spoke of economic progress, Patel reminded the gathering that the last 14 months have been bloody and violent, especially for civilians.

"The past year has not been good at all for the families of the more than 3,500 Sri Lankans killed as a result of the increased hostilities. Nor has it been a good year for the additional over 200,000 persons displaced by the conflict. It has not been a good year for the whole population of the north and east who have gone through serious difficulties and distress."

Although the recent months have witnessed spectacular military successes for Colombo, the government has come under severe criticism by the U.N. and other watchdogs for human rights violations and letting the humanitarian situation deteriorate.

Aid agencies have complained of being forced to close projects in the north and east under government pressure.

The short-term bleak economic outlook with galloping inflation and an exchange rate under pressure did not seem to dampen a government that came out beaming at the end of the donors' meet.

"The Sri Lanka Development Forum has announced new development assistance for 2007-2009 in the region of 4.5 billion dollars," the government announced triumphantly.

Yet, it was clear that the government had recognised that if it could put forward power sharing proposals, it just might wiggle out of a tight corner.

"The government and the development partners agreed that terrorism should be separated from finding a solution to the conflict and that a lasting solution should be found through a negotiated settlement," an official statement said.

Sri Lanka needs to unveil a credible devolution package to end the ethnic conflict and now is the time to do it, India told Colombo's new Foreign Minister Rohitha Bogollagama on his first foreign visit since taking office last month.

And Sri Lanka should remember that there could never be a military solution to the gory conflict that has turned messier since 2005-end after some years of relative calm, External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee told his counterpart during free and frank discussions.

India's concerns follow the resurgence of violence and counter-violence involving the military and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in which the key victims have been Tamil civilians.

There is also worry here over rabid opposition in Sri Lanka to proposals to make the country embrace a federal system.

On his part, Bogollagama assured the Indian leadership - he also met Prime Minister Manmohan Singh - of his government's determination to go for a devolution package that will be based on a broad political consensus in Sri Lanka.

But in his press conference just before leaving India for Germany, Bogollagama avoided direct answers to questions on human rights violations in Sri Lanka and repeatedly spoke of 'crushing terrorism' even while saying that Colombo wanted the LTTE to become a stakeholder in the peace process.

He also denied that the large-scale defection of MPs from the main opposition United National Party (UNP) to the ruling Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) marked an end to the joint UNP-SLFP approach to the peace process announced in 2006.

'We are encouraging a negotiated settlement. Our government is committed to peace,' the minister said, while calling upon the Tigers to change their stripes and return to negotiations. 'We want the LTTE to become more responsible.'

At the same time, he warned that if the LTTE was 'a terrorist movement', then 'you cannot encourage it. It has to be eliminated... Our government is committed to eradicating terrorism... We have to have terrorism out of our way.'

The LTTE, he said, needed to 'come to a negotiated settlement with the government. We want to make it a stakeholder (in the peace process). We have looked at LTTE as a stakeholder. But if it adopts terrorism, we cannot tolerate.'

Speaking about the setbacks the LTTE has suffered in the island's east, he mocked at the Tigers.

“If they are strong, let us see how strong they are. How strong were they in the east? That situation has changed today.”

Bogollagama said Sri Lanka had the “blessings of India” and referred to New Delhi's repeated pledge to stand by the island's territorial integrity.

But he made no mention about India's frequent requests to avoid killings of civilians and to move away from a military solution to the conflict.

Asked about the growing concerns in Tamil Nadu about the civilian suffering in Sri Lanka, the minister said there was 'so much of distortion' about what really was going on.

Queried if Sri Lanka wanted a unitary government as opposed to a federal system of governance, he replied: 'It is not an issue'.

He said that any negotiated settlement would be based on an indigenous 'Sri Lanka model'.

India is to finalise a US$100 million credit line to help Sri Lanka develop a southern railway link, PTI reported.

Colombo is in the process of negotiating the terms of the credit line, which forms part of India's development assistance to Sri Lanka, Additional Secretary, External Affairs Ministry, Dinesh Kumar Jain said.

"Over the past four years, we have given around USD281 million worth of credit which have been used to import wheat, petroleum products and buses," Jain told a meeting of Sri Lanka's international aid donors.

"We are ready to help Sri Lanka develop ICT (Information Communication Technology), power and explore off-shore oil," he said.

Sri Lanka recently gave India's state-run Oil and Natural Gas Corp (ONGC) permission to explore for oil off Sri Lanka's north western Mannar basin.

"Eight exploration blocks have been identified, of which one was given to the Indian government on nomination basis and the other to China," Lanka's Petroleum Minister A H M Fowzie said on the sidelines of the aid parleys.

The block in the Gulf of Mannar lies between the southern tip of India and Sri Lanka's west coast. It is also the closest block to India.

"The balance will be given through bidding process in three months time," Fowzie said.

Bilateral trade picked up after both sides entered a free trade pact in 1998.

Reiterating its strong support for Sri Lanka’s efforts “to combat terror,” the United States Monday called on President Mahinda Rajapakse’s government to also forge a power-sharing proposal as the basis for negotiations with the LTTE.

Pointing out development can only take place amid peace, U.S. Ambassador to Sri Lanka Robert Blake told a meeting of Sri Lanka’s donor community that ‘transparency, good governance, and respect for human rights and the rule of law are essential preconditions for economic development and indispensable prerequisites for … a lasting peace.”

He criticised Sri Lanka’s blocking of access to humanitarian agencies in the Northeast.

“At the outset, Mr. President, let me congratulate you on the formation of your new cabinet,” Mr. Blake told the donor meeting in the southern heartland of Galle attended by President Rajapakse.

“Let me tell you that United States look forward to working with you and all of your colleagues to advance our ambitious joint agenda”

“Mr. President, we applaud your efforts to forge a strong legislative majority that will support a credible power-sharing proposal that can form the basis for sustained, substantive negotiations between the Government and the LTTE,” he said.

“The United States and Sri Lanka have long been friends and strong allies,” the American Ambassador said.

“The U.S. remains deeply committed to continue our assistance to Sri Lanka to enhance economic development, help Sri Lanka recover from the tsunami, and work with Sri Lanka on a durable solution to the ethnic conflict that has held back the progress of your nation for more than two decades.”

“The United States, like Sri Lanka, is engaged in a sustained struggle against terrorism.”

“We are a strong supporter in assisting Sri Lanka combat terror by helping to stop the financing and flow of arms to the LTTE, by providing law enforcement assistance, and by providing training and equipment to help the Sri Lankan military to defend itself.”

“The development partnership between the U.S. and Sri Lanka goes back more than a half a century. Since 1956, the United States has provided nearly $2 billion in development assistance to Sri Lanka, including $134 million to help your country recover from the 2004 tsunami.”

“Over the last five decades, the U.S. Agency for International Development [USAID] has assisted in the development of Sri Lanka in many different ways.”

“[However] no amount of development assistance by the United States or any other donor can have any lasting impact, however, without finding a permanent solution to the conflict that has plagued Sri Lanka for more than 25 years.”

Mr. Blake reproached Sri Lanka’s blocking of access to humanitarian agencies.

“The deep U.S. commitment to the people and State of Sri Lanka brings about an equally deep concern for the difficulties faced by some of our implementing partners in their attempt to implement our assistance programs.”

“All of America's development assistance and tsunami relief is implemented through our NGO partners. Yet these NGO partners have faced difficulties that have hampered their ability to carry out their important work.”

“USAID staff and NGO partners are sometimes denied access to deliver assistance to people mostly need.”

“The [official] process of clearances and approvals for project activities are often not clearly spelled out at the provincial and local level; and can become more arduous without warning.”

“Many NGOs have been the target of unsubstantiated allegations in the Sri Lankan press that have caused the staff of these NGOs to be subject to physical harassment and intimidation.”

“In conclusion, let me say that United States attaches great importance to our partnership with Sri Lanka. We hope Sri Lanka will seize the opportunity to forge a power-sharing proposal that can form the basis for talks with the LTTE that could finally bring an end to conflict in Sri Lanka.”

What started off as military push to clear LTTE artillery guns from a strategic harbour in northeast Sri Lanka has culminated in a mission to defeat the Tigers completely - with no clear winner in sight.

Emboldened by the capture of a key LTTE stronghold, Sri Lanka has vowed to go on the offensive to seek to destroy the Tigers' entire military machine in the apparent belief it can finally win a two-decade civil war.

But observers say President Mahinda Rajapakse's government and military are understimating the Tigers, and could simply plunge themselves deeper into a war that has killed 4,000 in the past year alone.

"They [government] are on a roll. They think they can win," said one foreign diplomat on condition of anonymity. "I think they are going to try something.”

“I think the fighting's going to continue because neither side has a motivation to stop."

"On the side of the goverment, the hawks are in the driving seat and they're going to go forward because they think they're winning ... and they think they can go all the way," the diplomat added.

"(The Tigers) need to do something to achieve parity," he said.

As troops consolidate their grip on an eastern coastal swathe of what used to be LTTE-held territory, the security forces have the upper hand for now.

But the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) withdrew from the area to fight another day, and analysts say their military apparatus is still intact.

Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapakse, the President's brother, says the military will seek and destroy all LTTE military assets -- including in the northern de facto state they control under the terms of a tattered 2002 ceasefire.

The Tigers, who resumed their fight for an independent state in the north and east after the majority-Sinhalese government ruled out their demands for a separate homeland for minority Tamils, warn they retain their military capability and can resort to guerrilla jungle warfare.

"This is a very clear enunciation that the government will wage all-out war against the Tamil Tigers until they are defeated," said Iqbal Athas, an analyst with Jane's Defence Weekly in Colombo.

"It will mean there is going to be bloody war in the weeks and months to come," he added.

"This very clearly shows that there won't be a peace process until such time as the LTTE agrees (to talks) or the LTTE is militarily defeated."

Athas said the fact the Tigers' powerful naval arm was still intact, and their fighters still retained their capability because they withdrew rather than facing a full frontal assault, meant the LTTE is still a formidable opponent.

"With the capture of Vakarai in the east, the government has certainly has got the upper hand, but that is not to say that the Tigers' military capability has in any way been dented," he said.

"Completely eliminating the Tigers from the east is going to be a gigantic task for the army," he added.

"We can't rule out the fact they (the Tigers) may try to open up new fronts."