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Sri Lanka officials find 5 burned bodies
Associated Press,
Tue March 6, 2007 04:21 EST .
KRISHAN FRANCIS - Associated Press Writer - COLOMBO, Sri Lanka - (AP) Police found five burned bodies Tuesday near an abandoned field in north-central Sri Lanka - , the military said, as authorities vowed to rapidly investigate a growing number of unexplained killings and abductions in the island nation. Military spokesman Brig. Prasad Samarasinghe said the bodies were found in Thirapappane village in Anuradhapura district, about 160 kilometers (100 miles) northeast of Colombo. They have not been identified, he said. Police in Thirappane said the bodies, burned beyond recognition, were recovered after a civilian telephoned. The discovery came three days after police found five bodies dumped in a swamp close to Colombo. Police chief Victor Perera told reporters on Tuesday that his officials are trying to resolve the killings and several abductions. ``We suspect that these crimes are being committed by organized groups to embarrass the government,'' Perera said. He said the government is considering offering cash rewards for information from the public. According to the Civil Monitoring Commission, a local organization that has pushed for investigations into abductions and killings, about 50 people have been kidnapped in the past 12 months in Colombo and its suburbs alone, and 12 people have been found killed. Most of the kidnap victims belong to the ethnic minority Tamil community, according to Mano Ganeshan, an official of the commission. Unexplained killings have increased since early last year, when hostilities flared between government troops and Tamil Tiger guerrillas after a Norwegian-brokered 2002 cease-fire began to falter. About 4,000 people have died in violence since late 2005. The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, as the Tigers are formally known, have fought the government since 1983 to create an independent Tamil homeland following decades of discrimination by the majority Sinhalese. About 65,000 people were killed before the cease-fire was signed.
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Published: Tue Mar 6 07:10:34 EST 2007
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We have lost a great mathe-
matician, engineer, scientist, an old timer
of SLNet/LAcNet and a former LAcNet director. Pubudu Dayawansa (Daya)
was instrumental in carrying out many LAcNet projects. He was
responsible in setting up "Colombo Calling" a website that was
designed to carry weekly articles from Sri Lankan Academic community
and Human Rights activists. [
