The Ceylon News

Pro LTTE Supporters in Netherlands attacked the Sri Lankan Embassy there last night by using Beer Bottles.

The Windows of the Office Room of Sri Lankan Ambassedor Mrs.Ashirvadan broken due to this attack and the Ambassedor called Police after the Incident.

Dutch Police now providing Police Protection to the Sri Lankan Embassy and Ambassedor Mrs.Ashirvadan is planning to complaint this incident to the Dutch Foriegn Secretery.Prior to this attack the Sri Lankan Embassies in Norway,India and Canada also faced simillar attacks from the pro LTTE Supporters.

By David Perry

Horror stories in Britain about conditions in Sri Lanka camps housing hundreds of thousands of Tamil refugees are wrong, a north-east MP said last night Gordon Liberal Democrat Malcolm Bruce, chairman of the Commons overseas development committee, said there may be shortages but refugees he spoke to were happy to have escaped the fighting in the north of the island state.

Back from a two-day flying visit, he said his delegation, led by ex-Scottish secretary Des Brown, was the first international group to have reached the war-torn area near Vavuniya, where 123,000 men, women and children are surviving in primitive conditions in government camps.
The delegation faced an angry tirade from President Mahinda Rajapaksa when they arrived in the capital of Colombo asking questions about what had happened.

The president was “aggressively defensive” about the campaign against the rebels, who have conducted a terrorist campaign for decades – including the earliest suicide bombers – in support of the fight for independence.

“The president lost his temper with us and accused us of treating Ceylon like a colony,” said Mr Bruce. “He categorically denied the Sri Lanka army has bombarded civilians and said we had been killing civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan and we should not be lecturing him.”

The mood calmed after the MPs said they had no previous links with Sri Lanka and were not there to support the Tamil rebels but to see what help could be offered coping with the refugees.
Mr Bruce said: “I hope we managed to persuade them they should be more open and allow the international community to do more to assist them, and that keeping aid groups out is allowing the rebels to misrepresent what is going on.”

The group became the first to be allowed access to the camps, where they were able to talk to refugees.
Mr Bruce said: “They were pleased to have reached safety but concerned at shortages of water, sanitation, food and medical supplies.

“Many had been separated from other members of their families and were desperately anxious to find each other and be reunited.

“Many of the people we spoke to said they had not been able to leave the conflict zone because the rebels warned them that if they attempted to escape they would be shot and sentries were posted to prevent escape.”

The hospital was said to be full of casualties from weekend fighting

LTTE has shelled a hospital inside the conflict zone killing at least 45 people, Tamil Tiger rebel and hospital sources say.

SL Army said the makeshift hospital in Mullivaikal was hit early in the morning, and people injured in weekend attacks were among the dead.

A government spokesman denied knowledge of the incident, but said the army was not using heavy weapons in the zone.

The claims are impossible to verify as reporters are banned from the area.

More than 400 people were killed and over 1,000 injured over the weekend in what the UN has described as a bloodbath.

Many of the casualties from that fighting were taken to the Mullivaikal hospital.

The International Committee of the Red Cross has told the BBC that it has a ship waiting off the rebel-held zone to deliver essential supplies and evacuate sick and wounded people.

But its spokeswoman said the ground situation was making it difficult to dock and carry out humanitarian operations. The last evacuation was on Saturday.

'Nowhere to run'

Thurairaja Varatharajah, a health official at the hospital, told the Associated Press news agency it had been hit by a single mortar shell.

More than 50 people were injured, and he expected the death toll to rise because many of the injured had bad head and stomach wounds, he added.

However, military sources have suggested that doctors in the zone may be being forced to give statements at gunpoint by rebels.

Rebel spokesman Seevaratnam Puleedevan told AP civilians were fleeing in all directions.

"There's no place to seek shelter or protect themselves," he said.

The Sri Lankan military has meanwhile blamed civilian deaths on the Tigers, saying they are using people as human shields.

Defence ministry spokesman Keheliya Rambukwella told the BBC he knew nothing of the incident but that the military was not deploying heavy weaponry in civilian areas.

The UN estimates that about 50,000 civilians are trapped by the conflict, in a three-sq-km strip of land.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said on Monday he was appalled by the killings and called for an immediate halt to the fighting.

Diplomats from the UK, France and Austria said the Security Council should address the crisis, while the US said it was "deeply concerned" by the crisis.

The Tamil Tigers have fought for an independent homeland for Sri Lanka's Tamil minority since 1983.

More than 70,000 people have been killed in the war.

The UN condemned attacks in Sri Lanka as a "bloodbath" today as a doctor inside the no-fire zone estimated up to 1,400 people may have been killed in two days of air and artillery attacks.

Summing up his radio broadcast from Colombo the respected BBC’s Radio 4 reporter Andrew Hosken in Today programme said the Sri Lanka Army’s determination is not only to put an end to the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE)but also to save the trapped Tamil civilians.

He said in his broadcast , “ the army knows this is a fight not just to obliterate the Tamil Tigers but to save the lives of perhaps many thousands of innocent men, women and children caught up in the storm of war.”

He also said, “Although over the last two decades Kilinochchi has changed hands several times, its fall on 2 January signalled the end of the Tigers - who now control just a small coastal strip, 40km from Kilinochchi.”

The following is full text that was broadcast;
“For years, the town of Kilinochchi was the headquarters of the Tamil Tiger rebels, which the Sri Lankan government describes as a brutal and ruthless terrorist organisation.

“Now it is the HQ for the Sri Lankan Army which says it is on the verge of finally destroying an organisation it has fought for more than 30 years.

“When Kilinochchi was finally captured by the army earlier this year, there were widespread celebrations, particularly in the country's southern capital, Colombo.

“Although over the last two decades Kilinochchi has changed hands several times, its fall on 2 January signalled the end of the Tigers - who now control just a small coastal strip, 40km from Kilinochchi.

Ghost town

“Both the Sri Lankan government and its army clearly want nothing to come between them and the total victory they expect.

“They seem particularly anxious about the way the conflict, and the appalling humanitarian crisis in its wake, are reported by the foreign media.
“The military flew us by troop carrier and then helicopter the 250km north to Kilinochchi from Colombo.

“We arrived at the HQ for the two main infantry divisions that have now encircled the Tigers, the 57th and the 58th.

“Major General Jagath Dias, who commands the 57th, captured Kilinochchi for the government. "It was the proudest moment of my career," he said.

“But when the general finally raised the Sri Lankan flag in Kilinochchi, it fluttered over a ruined ghost town.

“Scarcely a building or piece of infrastructure remained intact. Even the vast jumbo jet sized concrete pipe that carried water to many people in the region is wrecked.

"This was deliberately destroyed by the terrorists," the general said, shaking his head in vigorous disapproval. "Do you think we did it?"

“The general's defensive question perhaps reflects a view widespread in the army and in government circles - that the western media has given succour over the years to the Tamil Tigers or Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).
“ On the road between Kilinochchi and Paranthan, we travelled through several abandoned towns and villages that had been virtually obliterated ”
“The army's press conference also made clear its view that what it sees as a gullible foreign media has been a part of the Tigers' weaponry since its violent campaign for a separate Tamil state in the north and east of Sri Lanka first took shape in the mid 1970's.

Heavy losses

“But more lethal weaponry is also being used by the Tamils in their last desperate days.
“Recently the Sri Lankan navy destroyed three so-called "Sea Tigers" vessels, including two suicide boats. Twenty-three Tigers died.
“Suicide attacks on troops are common occurrences. Six suicide attacks happened during one day during the same week the Sea Tigers sustained their heavy losses.

“This is why proportionately the army has killed twice as many LTTE cadres as it has wounded.
“Since starting its final offensive in February 2007, the Tigers have lost approximately 6,146 dead to 3,043 wounded, according to army estimates.

“Eleven LTTE cadres have died for every soldier, the army's commanders told us.

“The army was keen to show the media some of the arms and other items captured from the Tigers in recent months - including a tank, heavy artillery, assault rifles and home made land mines.

“We were taken to the hamlet of Paranthan, the place closest to the "no fire zone", the small coastal area currently held by the last of the Tigers.

“Although we were only 2 to 3km from the area, mainly made up of paddy fields and smallholdings, we could hear no signs of fighting.

“Only later could we discern what sounded like mortar fire, but it was not clear whose mortars they were.

“In what by any standards has been a vicious conflict, there have been claims by the LTTE of army breeches of the government's no fire zone pledge.

“After our stay with the army ended, we heard of an alleged artillery attack on a makeshift hospital in the no fire zone, killing more than 60 people.

“A pro-Tamil website accused the military of shelling the hospital. But Brigadier Udaya Nanakkara, a military spokesman, denied there had been any such attack.

Food shortages

“What was clear from our visit was the scale of the destruction.

“On the road between Kilinochchi and Paranthan, we travelled through several abandoned towns and villages that had been virtually obliterated.
“Everywhere there were smashed buildings and vehicles. Even road-side Hindu shrines were destroyed.

“We saw no civilians. Crops go untilled and livestock wander the fields untended.
“What is far from clear is the scale of the humanitarian crisis.

“Neither the true figure of the total number of internally displaced people (IDPs) is known nor the number of people allegedly held as LTTE hostages within the no fire zone itself.
“The United Nations says at least 172,000 people have crossed out of the conflict zone in recent weeks.

“There has been limited media access to the camps and IDP reception centres.

“The fate of those people in the no fire zone remains the biggest concern.

“According to Mr V Anandasangaree, President of the moderate Tamil United Liberation Front, the figure could be at least 100,000.

“Writing to the Sri Lankan President, Rahinda Rajapaska, Mr Anandasangaree said; "I have very reliable information that the number still stranded in the Vanni [region] is over 150,000."
“He called on the government to stop any aerial bombing or shelling and added; "There is also an acute shortage of food and the people are virtually on the verge of starvation."

“I put Mr Anandasangaree's figures both to Major General Dias and his senior colleague Brig Shavendra Silva, commander of the 58th division.
“They said it was difficult to calculate the number at this stage but thought the figure would be considerably lower that Mr Anandasangaree's estimate.

“Whichever figure is correct, the army knows this is a fight not just to obliterate the Tamil Tigers but to save the lives of perhaps many thousands of innocent men, women and children caught up in the storm of war