[ AP ]

Sri Lanka’s Tamil Tiger separatists are open to restarting peace talks with the government, despite the continuing military offensive aimed at crushing the group, a senior rebel official said. The two sides have been fighting for more than 25 years over the rebels’ demands for an independent state for minority Tamils in the north and east of this Indian Ocean island nation. A new military push deep into the rebel heartland in recent months has forced the Tamil Tigers to retreat from vast swaths of land they once controlled, and the government has said it expects to finish off the group in the coming months.

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[BBC]

A suicide bombing in Sri Lanka’s capital, Colombo, has killed at least five members of the paramilitary civil defence force, military officials said. The bomber hit a checkpoint near a market in Wattala, a suburb of Colombo, the officials said. No group has claimed to have carried out the attack, but it follows heavy fighting between Tamil Tiger rebels and the army in the north of Sri Lanka. The Sri Lankan navy says it has sunk a boat carrying supplies to the rebels.

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[IPS]

The eight rows of pews at St. Fatima’s church in Colombo were mostly empty despite the festive look from Christmas decorations. Beside the altar a young man with a receding hairline was setting up a slideshow on the plight of the tens of thousands displaced in war-torn northern Sri Lanka, run to the accompaniment of Bob Geldof and Midge Ure’s 1984 number, ‘Do they Know It’s Christmas?’. This was a special, pre-Christmas prayer service for civilians trapped in the Vanni or areas still under the control of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).

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[ IPS ]

Incessant rains and flooding in the Vanni, the Tamil rebel stronghold in northern Sri Lanka, are adding to the woes of at least 200,000 people stranded in intensified fighting between the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) and the Sri Lankan army since mid-September. On Tuesday, the pro-LTTE website, TamilNet.com, reported that floods were “flowing over most of the roads and civilians who had sought refuge in open lands and in temporary huts in low-lying areas were forced to seek shelter in schools, temples, churches and public buildings in Vanni.”

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[Boston Globe]

ASIA’S longest civil war is building to a violent crescendo. In the island nation of Sri Lanka, the Sinhalese-majority government should be pressed to accept a cease-fire, to permit a political settlement. Government forces are besieging the rebel Tamil Tigers in the north of the country. Since abandoning a ceasefire in 2006 and a Norwegian-sponsored peace process earlier this year, President Mahinda Rajapaksa and his brother, Defense Minister Gotabhaya Rajapaksa, have been vaunting their intention to crush the Tigers once and for all. There is little chance the brothers’ military campaign will produce anything other than a new phase of protracted guerrilla warfare. Meanwhile, over 200,000 civilians have been uprooted from their homes.

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[AP]

Every morning and evening, Velmurugu Kangasuriyam gathers his 2 1/2 year-old daughter and his wife and confronts the wreckage of his former life. His wife, Thaya, lights an oil lamp on the mantle of a dark, bare concrete room. Kangasuriyam presses his hands together and closes his eyes. Little Theresa follows in imitation. For a long minute his new family stands in silent prayer. Thaya places orange flowers in front of pictures of Hindu gods. She lays several more before a picture of Kangasuriyam’s parents.

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[VOA]

A military statement said troops captured the village of Sinna Paranthan, northwest of the rebels’ de facto capital of Kilinochchi, on Tuesday. The statement said its fighter jets launched several air strikes against rebel positions again Wednesday in the northern Paranthan and Muahamalai areas. The rebel-affiliated Web site TamilNet said military air strikes hit a convent marked with a large red cross on its roof Tuesday. It said the strikes killed 85 cows near the convent and sent civilians fleeing from the area. Independent verification of either side’s claims is impossible because journalists are barred from entering the conflict zone.

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[AFP]

When the deadly waters of the Asian tsunami smashed into this fishing village in Indonesia’s Aceh province four years ago, not one house was left standing. Now there are too many of them. Recovery has been uneven in the dozen countries hit by the 2004 Indian Ocean disaster, which killed more than 220,000 people. While some communities have rebounded and flourished on a multibillion dollar outpouring of aid, others have languished.

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[Reuters]

Yet, amongst all the carnage there was evidence of real human goodness, generosity and humility. The number of tremendous people who gathered to provide support and assistance at such a time of need was proof of a higher spiritual cause that united us in the humanity of mankind. The response of the local people and organisations was amazing. Everywhere you went people tried to help in their own way. For once regardless of ethnicity, religion or language, people united to help each other.

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[AFP]

Thousands of Tamils fleeing heavy fighting in the north of Sri Lanka are trapped by the government and being denied basic provisions, Human Rights Watch said Tuesday. People who have fled areas under control of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam rebels to seek safety in government-controlled regions are detained in army-run camps, the New York-based rights group said in a report. “Civilians are trapped in a war zone with limited aid because the government ordered the U.N. and other aid workers out,” HRW’s Asia director Brad Adams said.

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