``Only targeted measures would deter the LTTE from continuing to perpetrate grave violations against children,'' Prasad Kariyawasam, Sri Lanka's UN ambassador, said in a statement published on the government's Web site yesterday. Only punitive measures will ``compel them to renounce terrorism, lay down arms and take part in the political process.''

The LTTE has about 240 people under 18 years of age in its ranks, the group's Peace Secretariat said this month, citing the database of the Child Protection Authority in Kilinochchi, the northern town where it has its headquarters. That figure has remained static for more than four months, it said. More... Discuss this story Published: Mon Feb 25 21:19:18 EST 2008

None would dispute the claim that India has a role to play in Sri Lanka’s ethnic crisis. After all, it was India which in the early 1980s trained, armed and financed several Tamil militant groups to fight the Sri Lankan government. It was India which came to the rescue of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) and other militant groups when the Sri Lankan security forces were about to capture the Tamil Tiger stronghold of Vadamarachchi in 1987. It was India which imposed on Sri Lanka the 13th amendment to the constitution following a 1987 treaty. Even after Rajiv Gandhi, the former Indian Prime Minister, who browbeat Sri Lanka into accepting the 13th amendment, was killed in a Tamil Tiger suicide attack, India continued to play its role of running with the hare and hunting with the hounds.

Though India banned the LTTE as a terrorist organisation, for strategic purposes, it maintains some secret links with the LTTE. A case in point was when the LTTE laid siege on Jaffna in 2000, India, responding to a plea from the then Sri Lankan government, asked the rebels not to capture Jaffna. More... Discuss this story Published: Mon Feb 25 23:30:57 EST 2008

The representatives of the Tamil Makkal Viduthalai Pulikkal, a breakaway group of the LTTE contesting seats in local elections in the town of Batticaloa, were killed when a suicide attacker blew himself up yesterday, the Defense Ministry said on its Web site.

President Mahinda Rajapaksa's government is seeking $1.8 billion in aid to meet its pledge to rebuild the Eastern Province and hold elections. Voting for the Batticaloa Municipal Council is scheduled to take place March 10.

The LTTE has been driven back to bases in Sri Lanka's north since the capture of the eastern region, its worst defeat in a 25-year fight for a separate homeland in the South Asian island nation. The army's campaign in the east turned the region into a ``land of refugees'' for Tamils under ethnic-Sihanlese military rule More... Discuss this story Published: Sun Feb 24 23:43:21 EST 2008