The British government’s failure to file criminal charges against a former Tamil Tiger leader for grave human rights abuses in Sri Lanka is a tragic missed opportunity to bring a notorious rights abuser to justice, Human Rights Watch said today. In spite of strong efforts by the Metropolitan Police, on May 9 the United Kingdom government announced that the Crown Prosecution Service found there was “insufficient evidence to provide a realistic prospect of conviction for any criminal offences in the UK” against Vinayagamoorthi Muralitharan, known as Colonel Karuna Amman. [ full story | comments ]

The second Provincial Council Election to be held in the Eastern Province after the introduction of the Provincial Council system in Sri Lanka, as a solution to the ethnic problem, will take place today (10) in the Districts of Trincomalee, Batticaloa and Ampara. As mentioned in our first interim report a total of 982,721 voters registered as residents of the Eastern Province will be eligible to vote at this election. Compared with the total number of voters in the whole of Sri Lanka (the number registered at the time of the Local Government Election of 2006 was 13,788,718), less than 10% is resident within this province. However, this does not mean that everything is calm in the election process or that there are no negative signs up to this stage. [ full story | comments ]

A bomb blamed on Tamil Tiger rebels ripped through a cafe in eastern Sri Lanka Friday, killing 11 people and casting a cloud over pivotal provincial elections scheduled for Saturday. The government hailed the elections as a key step in restoring normalcy to the Eastern Province, which it freed from 13 years of Tamil Tiger rule last July. But even before the attack, the opposition and independent observers raised questions about the polls, accusing the ruling party of misconduct in its effort to ensure a victory it sees as its rightful reward. [ full story | comments ]

A bomb blamed on Tamil Tiger rebels tore through a cafe Friday evening in eastern Sri Lanka, killing 11 people and casting a cloud over crucial provincial elections scheduled for Saturday. The elections were meant to be a final step in restoring normalcy to the Eastern Province, which the government freed from 13 years of Tamil Tiger rule last year. To ensure a smooth poll, the government sent an unprecedented 28,000 police officers and an extra 4,000 soldiers to back up the thousands of troops already in the province, authorities said. [ full story | comments ]

30 Sri Lanka Army soldiers were killed, five dead bodies of SLA troops were recovered after heavy fighting at Ka'rukkaaykku'lam Friday morning, according to LTTE's Military Spokesman Irasiah Ilanthirayan. Two PK Light Machine Guns, one AK LMG, five T-56 assault rifles and military hardware including ammunitions were seized by the Tigers. The SLA, while pulling back was towing an Armoured Personnel Carrier that had caught fire, the Tigers said. Ka'rukkaaykku'lam is located 2 km east of Adampan. [ full story | comments (3) ]

All activities of the political parties and independent groups contesting the Eastern provincial council elections ended Wednesday midnight, the office of Elections Department (ED) announced Thursday. Meanwhile, expressing fear that Colombo was preparing itself for a large-scale election rigging, UNP parliamentarian Laxman Kiriyelle has accused the Sri Lankan Defence Ministry for its alleged involvement in distributing blank polling cards in the East. It is also alleged that nearly 170,000 polling cards remained stagnant in the post offices without being delivered and these were taken away by the paramilitary Pillayan group. [ full story | comments ]

The provincial council election scheduled for Saturday in war-ravaged eastern Sri Lanka is an attempt by the Colombo government to dress up its military occupation with a democratic façade. The real character of the poll is revealed by the government’s alliance with the paramilitary Tamil Makkal Viduthalai Pulikal (TMVP) and the presence of large numbers of troops and police to intimidate voters. The creation of an eastern provincial council was itself a provocative move. Provincial councils were first established in Sri Lanka under the 13th constitutional amendment as part of the 1987 Indo-Lanka Accord to end the country’s civil war. [ full story | comments ]

Returning to Colombo after several years, one is struck by the military checkpoints at key crossings where visitors are waved on but young Tamil males are not. The fortified capital is pasted with war posters – a map of Sri Lanka, with an eye in the middle and a caption: "Are you alert? If you are, your village and your country are safe." It is the ordinary Tamils who are paying the price, especially those in areas not controlled by the Tigers. "Nowhere in Sri Lanka are the Tamils safe," a Western diplomat told me in Colombo. "What's happening here is de facto ethnic cleansing," as Tamils flee for India or the Middle East and beyond. "The government doesn't seem to care if they all leave." [ full story | comments (3) ]

Four men have been charged with conspiring to support the banned Tamil Tigers terrorist organisation, Scotland Yard has confirmed. The men - arrested in London, Wales and Swindon - are accused of possessing laptops, antennas and high-powered magnets for terrorist purposes. They are due to appear at London's City of Westminster Magistrates' Court. The Tigers have fought for a generation in Sri Lanka, to gain an independent state for the Tamil minority. A Scotland Yard spokesman said earlier that the arrests of the men, aged 33, 39, 46 and 51, were part of a long-term investigation into support for overseas terrorism. [ full story | comments (5) ]

Movement Against Media Suppression (MAMS), a common front organization consisting of five major media organizations, held a memorial event Tuesday around 6:30 p.m. in front of Fort Railway Station, Colombo, in remembrance of the 14 slain journalists. The MAMS, in a leaflet gave the statistics, describing the state of media freedom in Sri Lanka where 14 journalists were killed in recent years, 8 journalists were subjected to abductions, 4 were imprisoned, 5 electronic broadcasts were blocked, 1 website blocked, 3 records of suppressive laws against media and countless number of harassments against media and media personnel. [ full story | comments ]

For the first time in 20 years, elections will be held Saturday in Sri Lanka's battle-scarred eastern province. Designed to establish a civilian administration – the Eastern Provincial Council – in an area formerly held by rebels, and to bring greater devolution to Tamil-minority areas, the vote suggests that the government is seeking a political as well as a military solution to Sri Lanka's chronic conflict. The island nation has been at war since 1983, when the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) began their struggle for a crescent-shaped homeland in the north and east for the island's Tamil minority, long discriminated against by the Sinhalese majority. [ full story | comments ]

Former Sri Lankan Tamil Tiger rebel Col Karuna has just completed a prison sentence in the UK and is now in an immigration detention centre. The BBC's Frances Harrison looks at his past and what might happen to him next. Col Karuna was once known as the favourite of the reclusive Tamil Tiger rebel leader Velupillai Prabhakaran. He was one of his bodyguards having joined the rebels in their early days when he was aged 17. He rose to become commander of rebel territory in eastern Sri Lanka and effectively number two in the Tiger military organisation. [ full story | comments ]

Britain has released former Sri Lankan Tamil Tiger rebel Karuna Amman from prison where he was detained on immigration charges, it said on Friday, believing he could not be convicted of war crimes. Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch expressed disappointment, saying police should continue to investigate the former eastern rebel commander. They accuse him of abuses including torture and child soldier recruitment both before and after his 2004 split from the mainstream rebels. [ full story | comments ]

A former leader of Sri Lanka's Tamil Tiger rebels who was jailed in the UK in January has been transferred to an immigration detention centre. Col Karuna was sent to jail in January for identity fraud after being arrested in London late last year. He was carrying an apparently genuine Sri Lankan diplomatic passport issued under a false name. It is not clear if he will be deported. Human rights groups want him charged in the UK with war crimes. That now seems unlikely. [ full story | comments (1) ]

Arumugam Jagan, an opposition candidate in Sri Lanka's Eastern Province elections, can barely campaign. His posters are torn down or covered in tar. He says he has been threatened by former rebels allied with the ruling party, and his supporters have been attacked as they handed out fliers and threatened with retaliation after Saturday's vote. The government has hailed the provincial election as a milestone in its campaign to crush the Tamil Tiger rebels and end this Indian Ocean island nation's 25-year civil war. But the opposition and independent observers say the ruling party is doing whatever it takes to ensure a victory it sees as its just reward for freeing the region from 13 years of rebel rule. [ full story | comments (1) ]

Sri Lanka's military announced the capture of a small town in the north after fighting Friday, calling it an important step in dismantling guerrilla strongholds in the area. Military spokesman Brig. Udaya Nanayakkara said the soldiers took control of Adampan town in northern Mannar district, which could restrict guerrilla movement and transportation of arms. Fifteen rebels and two soldiers were killed in the fighting. Rebel spokesman Rasiah Ilanthirayan could not be reached immediately for comment. It was not possible to obtain independent confirmation of the military's claims because reporters are not allowed in the war zone. Both sides are known to exaggerate death tolls and damage inflicted upon each other while underreporting their own losses. [ full story | comments ]

The Sri Lankan government has launched a fundraising drive amongst Sinhala expatriates in support of its military. The initiative was formally launched Tuesday at the Sri Lankan High Commission in London and is to be continued in other capitals with Sinhala Diaspora. Several businessmen came forward to contribute towards the UK target of GBP 100,000, press reports said. The Sri Lankan High Commissioner in London, Mrs. Kshenuka Seniwiratne, bought the first ticket in a raffle for the project. [ full story | comments (13) ]

Sri Lanka's military barred foreign journalists Thursday from covering weekend elections in the east that are seen as a test of confidence in the government, which seized the region from Tamil Tiger rebels last year. Maj. Gen. Palitha Fernando said any foreigner not registered as an election observer cannot be in Eastern province during the polls. An Associated Press reporter and a photographer were stopped at a checkpoint and were asked to go back. Fernando said the barring of journalists and other foreigners during the elections was for their own protection. [ full story | comments (2) ]

The Sri Lankan government has not seriously engaged the recommendation by several special procedures and by OHCHR to establish a human rights monitoring mission under U.N. auspices to document and report on violations committed by all sides to the conflict and to prevent further violations. Sri Lanka did not reply to any of the 12 questionnaires sent by special procedure mandate holders between 1/1/2004 and 31/12/2007, nor to over half of the 94 letters of allegations and urgent appeals sent by special procedures in that period. Sri Lanka has not implemented the principal recommendations of the Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances and the Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial Killings. [ full story | comments (7) ]

A leading Tamil actor and Desiya Murpokku Dravida Kazhakam (DMDK) party president Vijayakanth says one should not think that the arms support by India to Sri Lanka is against Sri Lankan Tamils. During his maiden address to media persons in New Delhi, he was asked to comment about the reported arms supply to Srilankan government by India and was it not against the interest of Tamils. "Why do you think it is against Tamils? It may of commercial interest’’, Vijayakanth asked media persons. [ full story | comments (21) ]