Sri Lanka’s security forces and allied paramilitaries intensified their campaign of abductions (‘white van’ abductions), torture, and murder of Tamil civilians. Tamil civil society leaders bore the brunt of the counter-insurgency campaign. Jaffna remained an open prison with shortage of essential items, east falling under the Sri Lanka Army (SLA) control with thousands displaced as Colombo concocts colonization schemes to make east a Sinhala majority province.

As Sri Lanka increased its military offensives against Tamils in the North following the abrogation of the ceasefire, the Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Monday virtually confirmed that he would not visit Colombo next month for the 60th anniversary of Sri Lanka's Independence Day on February 4.

 

"I have not made up my mind", he said when asked whether he would be traveling to Sri Lanka next month during an interaction with journalists in New Delhi.

Sri Lanka's recovery from the devastating tsunami of December 2004 has been uneven.

 

Rehabilitation work has notched up significant successes in the Sinhalese-dominated and more peaceful south, but it has suffered greatly in the war-torn northeast, which has a preponderance of the minority Tamils and Muslims.

The main opposition United National Party (UNP) last week accused the Sri Lankan government of the killing of Tamil parliamentarian Thiyagarajah Maheswaran on New Year’s day.

 

“The security of Mr. Maheswaran was withdrawn two weeks ago by the government despite repeated appeals that his life was in danger," UNP general secretary Tissa Attanayake said.

 

"Mr.

A Tamil parliamentarian from the main opposition United National Party (UNP), was assassinated by gunmen at the Ponnambala Vaaneasvarar temple at Kochchikkadai in Colombo on New Year’s day.

 

Colombo district parliamentarian Thiyagarajah Maheswaran, 41, was shot by gunmen while he was paying homage at the popular Siva temple in Colombo around 9.30 a.m. and succumbed to his injuries at the National Hospital in Colombo an hour later.

Kadatkaraichenai in Trincomalee was a thriving Tamil village less than a year ago.

Hundreds of people attended a ceremony Sunday at Puthukkudyrippu in Vanni to pay their respects to Colonel Charles, Head of Liberation Tigers’ Military Intelligence, who was killed Saturday evening in a random mine attack by Sri Lanka commandos in Mannaar district.

 

Col.

Human Rights Watch (HRW), the international rights watchdog, has called for a UN human rights monitoring mission in Sri Lanka in the wake of the Sri Lankan government quitting the 2002 ceasefire agreement with the Tamil Tigers.

 

The New York-based group said Thursday new monitors were needed to replace the Norwegian-led Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission (SLMM), hitherto tasked with supervising the truce and which is pulling out due to the abrogation of the c