Tamil Tigers

Raj Rajaratnam, a billionaire financier facing insider trading charges in the United States, is recalled in stone in one of the villages he helped recover from the Asian tsunami in 2004. A black granite monument honours the "Galleon Housing Scheme", named after his Galleon Group hedge fund, in the palm-fringed and rustic village of Rathgama, 112 kilometres (70 miles) south of the capital Colombo. Some of his most ardent fans want an even more visible tribute to his decision to build 100 new homes after the tsunami that killed 31,000 people in Sri Lanka. "We will continue to push for the Galleon name on ... Read Full Story

The leader of a boat of Sri Lankan asylum seekers held in Indonesia on their way to Australia is a known people smuggler previously deported from Canada, the government here said Friday. Alex, who emerged as the spokesman for the 255 Sri Lankans whose boat was detained last month, is Kulaendrarajah Sanjeev, a 28-year-old who worked out of a base in India, the foreign ministry said in a statement. The man, who led an abortive hunger strike demanding that those on board be granted refugee status, was expelled from Canada in 2003, the statement said. "Alex had been involved in human smuggling for a ... Read Full Story

The Tamil Tigers are finished as a military outfit but a small group of their feared suicide bombers still remain in Colombo, a top Sri Lankan official visiting India said. Rajiva Wijesinha also said that the number of Tamil refugees who were taken into camps following the defeat of the Tamil Tigers in May would fall from the original nearly 300,000 to 50,000 by January-end. Wijesinha, secretary in the ministry of disaster management and human rights, spoke to IANS and at the Institute of Peace and Conflict Studies here about the current situation in Sri Lanka. "Suicide bombers are still there in Colombo, we ... Read Full Story

The US House of Representatives urged Sri Lanka's government Wednesday to guarantee the safety and quick release of some 300,000 Tamils and other war-displaced people currently held in camps. By an overwhelming 421-1 vote, lawmakers approved a non-binding resolution that calls on the authorities in Colombo to help the populations of widely condemned, tightly guarded camps return to their homes. The measure urges Sri Lanka's government to turn over the operation of the camps to civilians, and allow day-to-day access to the camps for the Red Cross, non-governmental groups, and others who care for internally displaced people. It also calls on the government to ... Read Full Story

COLOMBO (Reuters) - U.S. authorities allowed Sri Lanka's military chief to return home without being questioned over human rights violations in the last months of the country's 25-year civil war, the Foreign Ministry said on Wednesday. The government on Monday had asked U.S. authorities not to question General Sarath Fonseka, the Chief of Defense Staff and a U.S. permanent resident, who led the army to victory over the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in May. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security had asked Fonseka to attend an interview on Wednesday in Oklahoma, where he was visiting his daughters. Sri Lanka feared U.S. authorities ... Read Full Story