[BBC]

Police in Sri Lanka say that former Tamil Tiger fighters are free to apply to join the police force.

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[Huffington Post]

Sri Lanka’s postwar policies are a hindrance to reconciliation between the country’s embittered ethnic communities, two years after the end of a civil war, an international think tank has said.

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[AFP]

India on Friday urged Sri Lanka to examine claims made in a British documentary that said it targeted civilians while crushing Tamil Tiger rebels two years ago. The Channel 4 documentary, “Sri Lanka’s Killing Fields” aired last month on British television contained footage of what it said were prisoner executions.

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[New York Times]

In April 2009, we travelled together as foreign ministers to Sri Lanka, as 25 years of fighting between the Sri Lankan government and the Tamil Tigers neared its end.

The remaining fighters were trapped in the northern most part of the country — along with large numbers of civilians. U.N. estimates put the numbers of civilians there in the last few months of the war at over 300,000.

Our purpose was simple: to draw attention to the human suffering, to call for humanitarian aid and workers to be allowed in, and to call for the fighting to stop.

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[AP]

East Timor’s president warned Monday that a military solution in Sri Lanka will not bring peace unless it is accompanied by dialogue between the government and Tamil Tiger insurgents. Jose Ramos-Horta, who shared the 1996 Nobel Peace Prize with Bishop Carlos Belo for leading a nonviolent struggle against the Indonesian occupation, offered to help the country achieve a settlement. Sri Lanka’s 25-year-old conflict has cost tens of thousands of lives. Battles intensified in recent months and government forces claim they are near to defeating Tamil Tigers rebels after taking all but a tiny portion of their de facto state.

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[ AP ]

Patients are fleeing a hospital that was hit four times by artillery shells in the war between the Tamil Tiger rebels and government forces in northern Sri Lanka this week, the Red Cross said Tuesday. Also Tuesday, the military said it had captured the rebels’ seventh and final airstrip, effectively grounding their tiny air force as troops pushed ahead with their offensive to crush the guerrilla group and end Asia’s longest-running civil war. On Monday, independent observers handed The Associated Press dramatic pictures and video, showing scores of civilians killed or maimed.

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[ AFP ]

Sri Lanka’s government says it is on the verge of defeating Tamil Tiger rebels and ushering in peace after decades of ethnic bloodshed, but the island’s main ethnic minority is as fearful as ever. Ethnic Tamil civilians reduced to submission by the feared Tamil Tiger rebels are equally apprehensive of government forces even as the military announced it hoped to finish off the guerrillas by April. Last year the authorities evicted hundreds of Tamils from Colombo, saying they were a threat to national security. The move was stopped following court intervention after charges that it amounted to collective punishment.

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[ AFP ]

Two senior US Senators on Monday jointly urged Sri Lanka’s government and Tamil Tiger rebels to safeguard civilians and ease humanitarian access to areas affected by the deadly conflict. Democrat John Kerry, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and Republican Richard Lugar, the panel’s top Republican, said they were “greatly concerned about the deteriorating humanitarian situation.” “We urge the Government of Sri Lanka and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam to immediately take all necessary steps to protect civilians and facilitate humanitarian access,” the lawmakers said in a joint statement.

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[AP]

Sri Lanka warned Western diplomats, foreign journalists and aid groups Sunday that they would be “chased” out of the country if they appear to favor the Tamil Tiger rebels. Defense Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa singled out the ambassadors of Switzerland and Germany, and television networks CNN, BBC and Al-Jazeera in his criticism of foreigners, accusing them of being biased. Rajapaksa said certain foreign media reports were damaging the security forces at a time they were “dealing the final death blow” to the Tigers.

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[BBC]

As Sri Lanka’s military takes control of key territory held by the Tamil Tiger rebels, Chris Morris in Colombo reports on a deepening mood of determination and defiance on both sides of the conflict. Getting through to the Tamil Tigers isn’t easy these days. Their world is getting smaller. Surreptitious messages. Crackling phone lines. “Can I talk to him now?” “It’s difficult.” “Why?” “There’s heavy shelling. Please call again later.” Eventually I make a connection with the Tigers’ political leader, B Nadesan. He sounds remarkably calm for the spokesman of a group which has lost most of the land and all the main towns it controlled a year ago.

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