SL Police expel Tamils from Colombo lodges

[tamils]

Despite the assurances by the Sri Lankan Government Information department last week citing the Head of the state, Mahinda Rajapaksa, that all citizens would be treated equally, Sri Lankan Policemen in Colombo Thursday launched search operations and entered the private lodges to forcefully evacuate the Tamil tenants, initial reports from Colombo said. A large number of policemen have been deployed on duty since 4:00 a.m. on the roads in Wellawatte and Pettah areas. Hundreds of civilians have been packed in busses to be sent away, initial reports said. The Police raid was going on in four police divisions, Wellawatte, Kotahena, Pettah (Peaddai) and Wattala.
47 Tamils were forcefully taken from a single lodge located in Station Road in Wellawatte. Another lodge in the area reported 35 persons were taken away by the Police. Many lodges have been raided in all the four police divisions.

Eyewitnesses said four buses full of Tamil civilians from NorthEast were parked in front of Kotahena Police Station.

Reports further said more than 3 buses were to be sent to Vavuniyaa and a similar number of buses to the east port town.

Last Thursday, the Police Officer-in-Charge (OIC) of Pettah Police division, Chief Inspector Jayaratne, summoned lodge owners and gave instructions to immediately expel around 5000 Tamil tenants from Northeast and Upcountry staying in 68 lodges in Pettah Police division.

Later, the Information department of the Sri Lanka Government denied the reports of the instructions reportely given by the Police OIC.

The Sri Lankan Police IGP Victor Perera who launched a new Tourist Police Unit last week had said everyone having a valid reason to stay in lodges were free to stay

[SAN_APIIT]

Thanks for the info, this is really good news..
And i must add only the ppl without ID cards was send back..
May be now colombo will be safe from the terrorists....

[yamaha]

TAMIL EELAM ha ha ha its a dream

[blood_brotha]

http://imajr.com/th/fee35549d51c69c08a6cc81d624e6a38_86265.gif (http://imajr.com/fee35549d51c69c08a6cc81d624e6a38_86265)

[BUA]

********
i think you also need to go some where by a white colour van ;)

[x-pert]

i think you also need to go some where by a white colour van ;)


heheehe.... Thawath moda yakek awilla neda bung...?? :lol: :lol: :lol:

Ganan ganda epa bung.. marenna lang wenakota ohoma thamai lu hasirenne... :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:

[BUA]

heheehe.... Thawath moda yakek awilla neda bung...?? :lol: :lol: :lol:

Ganan ganda epa bung.. marenna lang wenakota ohoma thamai lu hasirenne... :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:


outtat white colour van eken divya loke yanna asa hitilada koheda:lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:

[sakala]

thawath LTTE supporter keneka??

[x-pert]

hahahaah... :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:
Badu maattu...


Thamilan = Thamila = Silva07 = silvaSL = shan11 = tiger = sothy = LTTE

koti = koddiya = eleelan = fazlal = LTTE

[crazyfool]

Habi pow banz. Oya yavapu katiyagen keepayak athi asarane ung. :(

Asarane ung ta thanak nathi wunahama Sri Lankawe, nikkang ape ung kiyane LTTE ekata gihin bandena kiyalade?

Mang nang kiyane oya karupu wade waradi. Adu gane ung la tikke monitor kerala LTTE suspect ung we yavane thibae.

[crazyfool]

Thanks for the info, this is really good news..
And i must add only the ppl without ID cards was send back..
May be now colombo will be safe from the terrorists....

Oh so only people without ID cards were sent. Sounds reasonable. :yes:

Habi mang kiyave pu ekka news ehaka wath oke Q we naha. Why did they omit such details? :shocked: That's bad.

[akeel1]

The United States condemns the forced removal of Tamils

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Colombo, June 8, 2007: The United States condemns the forced removal of Tamils from Colombo. Such measures violate the Sri Lankan Constitution’s guarantee that every citizen has the right to freedom of movement and choice of residence within Sri Lanka.

The United States condemns the forced removal of Tamils from Colombo. Such measures violate the Sri Lankan Constitution’s guarantee that every citizen has the right to freedom of movement and choice of residence within Sri Lanka.

The United States understands and supports Sri Lanka’s obligation to defend itself against terrorism. But this action can only widen the ethnic divide at a time when important efforts are underway to reach a national consensus to end Sri Lanka's nearly quarter-century old conflict.

We call upon the Government of Sri Lanka to stop the forcible removal of its citizens from Colombo, to make public the destinations of those already removed, and to ensure their safety and well-being.
http://colombo.usembassy.gov/pr-08june2007.html

[akeel1]

Police evict Tamils from Colombo (BBC World News)

Police in Sri Lanka have forced hundreds of the minority Tamil community out of the capital Colombo for what they say are security reasons.
They launched overnight raids in Tamil areas of the city and forced guests staying in budget hotels onto buses.

Police said that Tamils who were in the capital "without valid reasons" were made to board buses bound for the north and east of the island.

Police said that the move was necessary amid fears of renewed civil war.

'Bad example'

They say that the crackdown is part of continuing efforts to stop the Tamil Tigers infiltrating the city of 600,000 people.

They also say the measure is also being taken for the safety of the Tamil community amid a rash of abductions across Colombo blamed on the rebels and the security forces.


There has so far been no immediate comment from the government or the rebels about the move, but mainstream Tamil political leaders have condemned it.

"This operation is a very bad example," Tamil political leader Dharmalingam Sithadthan told the AFP news agency.

"It is OK for the Tamil Tigers to indulge in this sort of ethnic cleaning because they have no moral responsibility, but a government can't behave like this," he said.

'Serious violation'

Officials told the Reuters news agency that 291 men and 85 women were sent in seven buses, six towards the northern district of Vavuniya - in the front line of recent fighting - and one busload to the eastern district of Batticaloa.

"Some people who had no valid reasons to be in Colombo and are just hanging around, they have been requested to leave and told they had better get back to their own villages," Colombo Inspector General of police Rohan Abeywardene told Reuters.

Correspondents say that hundreds of Tamils, many from impoverished rural areas, live in boarding houses in Colombo while they seek work at home or abroad.

Many ethnic Tamils complain they have been deliberately targeted by the security forces, detained and searched.

One man forced to board one of the buses called the private local radio station Sirisa FM from a mobile phone.

"The police came and took us and put everyone on the bus," he said, saying the bus was about 32km (20 miles) outside the capital, heading northeast.

"We don't know where we are being taken."

Human rights campaigners and other observers say they are shocked at what they say is a serious violation of human rights.

"This is almost like a variation of ethnic cleansing," Paikiasothy Saravanamuttu of the independent Centre for Policy Alternatives think-tank told Reuters.

-BBB News-

[akeel1]

http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/43019000/jpg/_43019295_colomboeviction_afp.jpg
http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/43019000/jpg/_43019297_srilankaeviction2_afp.jpg
http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/43019000/jpg/_43019295_colomboeviction_afp.jpg


http://www.reuters.com/resources/r/?m=02&a...25071&w=450

Police evict Tamils from Colombo

Human rights groups have condemned the evictions

Police in Sri Lanka have forced hundreds of the minority Tamil community out of the capital Colombo for what they say are security reasons.

They launched overnight raids in Tamil areas of the city and forced guests staying in budget hotels onto buses.

Police said that Tamils who were in the capital "without valid reasons" were made to board buses bound for the north and east of the island.

Police said that the move was necessary amid fears of renewed civil war.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/6729555.stm

--------------------------------

Sri Lanka battles rebels, evicts Tamils from capital

COLOMBO (Reuters) - Sri Lanka evicted hundreds of minority ethnic Tamils from the capital on Thursday and sent them back to the war-torn north citing security concerns, as the military battled Tamil Tiger rebels in the east.

http://www.reuters.com/article/worldNews/i...L26780920070607

[akeel1]

Sri Lanka police evict ethnic Tamils from capital (AFP News)

Sri Lankan police forced hundreds of ethnic minority Tamils out of the capital Colombo Thursday as part of an effort to clear the city of feared Tiger terror cells, officials and witnesses said.

Armed police stormed Tamil-majority areas of the capital under cover of darkness and frogmarched guests at low-budget hostels into buses at gunpoint, residents said.

One man who was forcibly removed told a local radio station by mobile phone that they were woken at 3.45am and moved while still wearing their night clothes.

They were not even allowed to use the toilet, the man said while his bus was being escorted by police and speeding out of Colombo.

The forced eviction came even as Japanese peace envoy, Yasushi Akashi, was visiting the island in a bid to try and revive the island's tattered peace process.

The local media rights group, the Free Media Movement (FMM) slammed the government action and said the eviction was "tantamount to ethnic cleansing."

"This reminds us of what Hitler did to the Jews," said FMM spokesman Sunanda Deshapriya.

The defence ministry confirmed the eviction, but said the move was necessary to prevent Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) bomb attacks. Nine people were killed in and around Colombo, a city of 600,000 people, in two blasts last month.

"Investigations have also confirmed that those responsible for these brutal killings have hatched their brutal plans and executed them from these 'lodgings'," the ministry said in a statement.

It said 376 people, including 85 women, were sent in seven buses to their homes in Vavuniya and Jaffna in the north and Batticaloa and Trincomalee in the east. Police sources, however, said nearly 50 buses were used.

It was not clear how the civilians would be taken to the Jaffna peninsula. There is no land access to Jaffna which has been cut off since August last year.

Police had last week announced they would provide transport for Tamils to return to their homes in the embattled northern and eastern regions unless they could prove they were employed in Colombo.

"This operation is a very bad example," Tamil political leader Dharmalingam Sithadthan said.

"It is OK for the LTTE to indulge in this sort of ethnic cleaning because they have no moral responsibility, but a government can't behave like this," he said.

He said the police move reminded him of how the Tamil Tigers had evicted thousands of minority Muslims from the northern peninsula of Jaffna in 1990.

Thousands of Tamils from revolt-hit areas arrive in the capital monthly in the hope of obtaining passports to travel abroad for employment or to secure political asylum overseas.

But Tamils are required to obtain permits from the police to travel to the rest of the country under a de facto visa system put in place to prevent Tiger rebels infiltrating the capital.

Official sources said restrictions were set to tighten, with the deployment of cameras to photograph anyone leaving the embattled north and east and travelling to the rest of the country.

The evictions reverberated in the national parliament, where ethnic Tamil lawmakers briefly held up proceedings to protest, officials said.

-AFP-

[akeel1]

http://img233.imageshack.us/img233/3444/46474736kd0.jpg
http://img292.imageshack.us/img292/5209/72334197lx6.jpg
http://img292.imageshack.us/img292/4648/34354496sk9.jpg

[akeel1]

Sri Lankan court halts Tamil eviction
From correspondents in Colombo, Sri Lanka
June 08, 2007

SRI Lanka's Supreme Court today ordered an immediate halt to the eviction of minority ethnic Tamils from the capital, a day after hundreds were expelled at gunpoint.
The Court issued the order following a complaint by a political activist group that yesterday's police operation was a violation of fundamental rights.

"The court will hear the case on June 22, and in the meantime the police Inspector General was restrained from carrying out any eviction of Tamils," a court official said.

Human rights activists have said the expulsions amounted to a "collective punishment" on the Tamil community.

Sri Lanka's Defence Ministry has insisted the operation, in which hundreds were bussed out of the capital to the war-torn east and north, was necessary to prevent bomb attacks by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).

The Tamil Tigers have been fighting for separation from the Sinhalese-majority south of the island since 1972.

Nine people were killed in and around Colombo, a city of 600,000 people, in two blasts last month.

The rebel infiltrators were believed to have used cheap lodgings similar to those targeted in the police raids.

This story is from our news.com.au network Source: AFP

[x-pert]

SO..... WTF...!!!



Wait and see What Will happen soon...
Thopi haththata mulu lookenma yanna Wenava lagadima...

I feel really sad about the feW innocent tamil people Who have to suffer coz of you guys' acts...

[akeel1]

Sri Lanka slammed for deporting Tamils, bomb defused
By Simon Gardner

COLOMBO (Reuters) - Sri Lankan police defused a big roadside bomb in Colombo on Friday as local and international rights groups slammed the government for rounding up minority ethnic Tamils and deporting them to the war-ravaged north.

The military said a 7-kg Claymore mine was found planted by a main road near a police barracks in a residential quarter of the capital, a day after police swept boarding houses in Colombo and evicted 376 Tamils citing security concerns.

Many deemed by police to lack valid reasons to be in the capital spent the night in the grounds of a school building in the northern district of Vavuniya, now the front line of renewed civil war between the state and Tamil Tiger rebels.

The government now wants them to cross into rebel-held territory and return to their native villages at a time when the foes are fighting artillery duels. Some observers likened the move to ethnic cleansing and dubbed it a disgrace to humanity.

"Nothing could be more inflammatory in Sri Lanka's polarised climate than identifying people by ethnicity and kicking them out of the capital," Brad Adams, Asia director at Human Rights Watch, said in a statement issued from New York on Friday.

"Tamil Tiger crimes don't give the government the right to engage in collective punishment," he added. "The Sri Lankan government is sending the dangerous message that it views most of its Tamil citizens as a threat to security."


GOVERNMENT CRACKDOWN

Aid agencies said the government had failed to lay on any food or water for the evicted families on their arrival. President Mahinda Rajapaksa's government insists the eviction was voluntary, which those ejected denied.

Police said the move was a security measure following a series of attacks blamed on the rebels in and around the capital in recent months, and was also an effort to eject any potential Tiger infiltrators from Colombo.

A Reuters witness in Vavuniya saw elderly women, mothers carrying children and young men getting off police buses, herded by police carrying T-56 assault rifles. Many carried a few salvaged possessions in plastic bags.

"I had come back from abroad and was living in a lodge in Colombo. Then the police told me to get into the bus. They didn't tell me where it was going," said 32-year-old ethnic Tamil Kularatnam Prabhakaran after dismounting from a bus.

But Prabhakaran, whose name is similar to that of the Tigers' feared leader, is from the army-held northern Jaffna peninsula, which is cut off from the rest of Sri Lanka behind heavily guarded defence lines. He cannot reach home even if he tries.

"They told me to go to Jaffna," he said. "I told them I can't go back because I can't live in Jaffna. Now if we can't live in Colombo, where can we live?"

Aid groups said it was unclear when the deported Tamils would move from the school in Vavuniya, but the Tigers have said they would allow them to cross into their territory.

Sri Lankan civil rights groups sent an open letter to President Mahinda Rajapaksa on Thursday calling for a halt to the deportation of Tamils from the capital, amid fears it could stoke ethnic tensions at a time when the civil war that has killed nearly 70,000 people since 1983 is deepening.

(Additional reporting by Ranga Sirilal)


http://in.today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?rpc=401&type=topNews&storyID=2007-06-08T111232Z_01_NOOTR_RTRMDNC_0_India-302130-1.xml&archived=False

[Dan01]

FUCK U LTTE

[teron]

very sad

[sampath312]

cannot agree with this hundred percent...:( :(
innocent ppl were there for sure .....but some thing to mention is this situation was created for tamils by fu**ing LTTE ass holes.....now tamils are eating the punishment because of LTTE, but the government should have worked much wisely in this matter.....whole international is always keeping eye....So this is one of foolish events taken by government recently......shit LTTE is trying to make this whole island upside down so government should use there minds than this to prevent this.......this is not the way this matter should be treated:( :( :( :(


sad about this situation