Turmoil in Kattankudy - Day-04

The police at Kattankudy have imposed the curfew for the fourth days. The situation reports says the damages of both parties since the last Sunday are, 35 houses were destroyed, 13 people were severely injured and who have been hospitalized and 3 vehicle were burned. No solution is so far considered. The population of Kattankudy is suffering without a proper leadership of guidelines. Since the four days, the commercial traders did not open the shops and the daily wage earners have been impaired by this catastrophe. All mosques are closed before at 9 o’clock at night due to the curfew. Many worshipers are terribly scolding the inciters of both parties. The holy month of Ramzan is brought the huge benefits for the believers however, the unrest blockades the prayers.

The Jameeyathul Ulama and the Federation of Kattankudy do still not consider the situation. There is no unique group or leadership for taking the prompt action in an appropriate time in Kattankudy. The Kattankudy Muslims communities are believed, the crisis will over today or tomorrow but all the organizations are keep closed their eyes and sprawling in an armchair. The real loses only to the commercial traders and the daily earners. We urge the government to show mercy in the situation of Kattankudy people and take immediate action please.

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Government-condoned militia abducting hundreds on Sri Lanka 's east coast

Associated Press, Wed October 4, 2006 08:08 EDT . BATTICALOA, Sri Lanka - (AP) A feared militia along Sri Lanka's volatile eastern coast has abducted hundreds of men and boys some as young as 12 and is training them for combat in camps operated with the government's consent, witnesses and officials said. Named for its commander, who goes by the nom de guerre ``Karuna,'' the paramilitaries a breakaway faction of Sri Lanka's main Tamil Tiger rebel movement have added a new factor to Sri Lanka - 's civil war, which began in 1983 and has savaged the nation. Their existence also complicates efforts by foreign mediators to revive peace negotiations.

Renewed fighting this year has killed more than 1,000 people on this island off southern India, rendering a 2002 cease-fire essentially void.

By allowing Karuna's forces to operate, the government has gained an ally against a common enemy, said Robert Karniol, Asia Pacific bureau chief for Jane's Defense Weekly.

``The Tamil Tigers are a serious threat to the government and anything that weakens or distracts from that is advantageous to Colombo,'' Karniol said.

The Karuna faction split from the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam in 2004, with Karuna saying the larger group didn't defend the interests of the country's eastern Tamils. The faction has since built up a strong military presence in the island's east.

It is demanding a role in peace talks with the government and says there can be no solution without them.

Hundreds of Karuna fighters are terrorizing the district of Batticaloa, the scene of a rash of abductions that began in March, residents said.

The total number of disappearances is unclear because so many go unreported, but officials from several aid organizations estimate at least 300 people have been taken by Karuna's men this year.

``It has definitely been hundreds and it might not be all of them,'' said Bjorn Kjelsaas of the Sri Lanka - Monitoring Mission, established to oversee the 2002 cease-fire.

The government, for its part, denies helping the Karuna faction.

``We don't know about his (Karuna's) whereabouts. We have been right throughout denying that we are involved with them,'' the government's national security spokesman, Keheliya Rambukwella, said.

But the two forces clearly work together, many people say. Karuna faction troops, mostly dressed in civilian clothing, work alongside police and army officials at roadblocks, according to a high-ranking local official and aid workers. Because of the violence in the area unexplained killings happen nearly every day, as various factions battle for supremacy only a handful of people were willing to use their names.

A leader of the faction's political wing, E. Prethip, told The Associated Press that the group's members are ``volunteers.''

He blamed the Tamil Tigers for committing atrocities in Karuna's name, and said members were armed only in self defense.

``They carry out ambushes, loot houses, kill civilians. They kidnap the children and they say it was done by Karuna,'' Prethip said in his office, where children served visitors drinks.

``Our military does not cooperate with the Sri Lankan army, but we're not enemies either,'' he said, sitting in front of a bookcase filled with children's books and a recent copy of ``Eye Spy'' intelligence magazine.

The disappearances have become so common that almost every family around Batticaloa has lost a son, or knows someone who has, residents said. A teacher said his 10th grade high school class had almost no boys left.

Scores of underage boys sometimes dozens at once have been rounded up at their homes, Hindu temples, schools or by the side of the road and spirited away in white vans, according to witnesses and confidential case files presented to Sri Lankan prosecutors and the Ministry for Human Rights and obtained by The Associated Press.

In the most recent known case, two dozen youngsters were taken from a single village on Sept. 24, said a human rights activist who spoke on condition of anonymity because she feared for her life.

In a desperate attempt to protect their children, many families have sent their sons to safe houses, a local resident said.

Some K-faction recruits receive wages, normally around 6,000 rupees (around US$60; euro47.11) a month, with two thirds generally going to the family. Relatives are sometimes allowed to visit the camps, often in exchange for not going to authorities, aid workers said.

``The communities seem to know who is taking their children and they live in fear and are in need of protection,'' said Marcel Smits, head of the aid group Nonviolent Peaceforce Sri Lanka - .

Parents who had visited said their children were receiving military training to fight the Tigers, Smits said.

One couple, whose names were withheld to protect them, told The Associated Press their 16-year-old son was taken by a neighbor eight months ago and has not been seen again.

The parents are too scared to go to the police, choosing to suffer silently while protecting the three boys they still have.

``We didn't try to go after him and don't know where he is,'' said the father, as his wife huddled in a corner, staring blankly into the glow of an oil lamp. ``We just want to have an ordinary life.''

Sri Lankan air force pound rebel positions in north; bomb recovered in capital

Associated Press, Wed October 4, 2006 06:27 EDT . COLOMBO, Sri Lanka (AP) _ Sri Lanka's air force bombed Tamil Tiger rebels' mortar positions in the embattled north on Wednesday, a day after the insurgents agreed to peace talks with the government but warned that further military action would see them pull out of a shaky four-year-old cease-fire.

Separately, police in the capital, Colombo, discovered a powerful bomb in a garbage dump that was apparently being stored for future use, the military said.

``We took three airstrikes, this morning, to destroy their (Tamil rebel) mortar positions,'' said military spokesman Brig. Prasad Samarasinghe.

He said insurgents were firing mortars toward government troops in the Pallai and Pooneryn areas of the northern Jaffna peninsula and that airstrikes were required to neutralize those attacks.

Although the damage is exactly not known, ``the pilots have seen mortar positions caught in fire,'' Samarasinghe said.

Also on Wednesday, Tamil Tigers attacked an army camp in Vavunathivu in the eastern Batticaloa district and troops repulsed the attack with mortars and artillery, said Samarasinghe. No casualties were reported.

The violence came just hours after the rebels told a Norwegian peace-broker that they would meet with the government, unconditionally. The last round of peace talks aiming to end two decades of civil war were held in February.

However, the rebels warned that further government military action would see them withdraw altogether from a 2002 cease-fire accord.

It wasn't immediately clear how the military's airstrikes would affect the rebels' offer for talks. Tiger officials were not immediately available for comment.

The Norway-brokered cease-fire temporarily ended Sri Lanka's 19-year civil war between the government and Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam who want to carve out a separate homeland for the country's ethnic Tamil minority, citing decades of discrimination by the majority Sinhalese. About 65,000 people were killed in the conflict before the truce.

Renewed fighting since late July, however, has left at least 1,000 combatants and civilians dead, even though both sides say they are still honoring the truce.

The homemade bomb, weighing about 15 kilograms (33 pounds), found in Colombo, was not set to explode, Samarasinghe said.

He said a resident had spotted the device and informed police at a nearby checkpoint.

It was not clear who hid the bomb, but separatist Tamil Tiger rebels have been accused of a series of roadside explosions that have killed scores of government troops and civilians since December.

On Wednesday nearly 5,000 protesters marched along the main roads in Colombo protesting against what they called ``foreign intervention'' in solving the country's ethnic conflict.

The protest was led by trade union and student wings of the Marxist People's Liberation Front which opposes power sharing as a solution to Sri Lanka's long-drawn conflict. The party holds 39 seats in the 225-member Parliament.

Shouting slogans against the Norway-led efforts to solve Sri Lanka's ethnic conflict, protesters carried placards which read ``Say no to Norway, Hands off Sri Lanka.''

``We are against the devolution efforts by the so-called international forces. Today, Tamil Tigers have been weakened and these forces want to strengthen them,'' said Anura Dissanayake a party lawmaker.