Police had last week announced they would provide transport for minority Tamils to return to their homes in the island's embattled northern and eastern regions unless they could prove they were employed in Colombo.
The crackdown is part of efforts to stop the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) infiltrating the city of 600,000 people, police said. There was no immediate comment from the government.
"This operation is a very bad example," Tamil political leader Dharmalingam Sithadthan said.
"It is OK for the LTTE to indulge in this sort of ethnic cleaning because they have no moral responsibility, but a government can't behave like this," he said.
He said the police move reminded him of how the Tamil Tigers had evicted thousands of minority Muslims from the northern peninsula of Jaffna in 1990.
"Tamil people have been rounded up by the police and I believe they are being taken back to their villagers in the northeast," Sithadthan said.
Police sources said nearly 50 buses had been deployed for the pre-dawn operation.
Last week, police Inspector-General Victor Perera said Tamils from the embattled northern and eastern provinces were spending long periods of time in Colombo without any work and that they were a threat to national security.
"Those who are loitering in Colombo will be sent home. We will give them transport," Perera said.
"We are doing this to protect the people and because of a threat to national security."
Thousands of Tamils from revolt-hit areas arrive in the capital monthly in the hope of obtaining passports to travel abroad for employment or secure political asylum overseas.
But Tamils are required to obtain permits from the police to travel to the rest of the country under a de facto visa system put in place to prevent Tiger rebels infiltrating the capital.
The guerrillas, who have been fighting for a Tamil homeland for 35 years, were blamed for two bomb attacks that killed nine people and wounded 44 in and around the capital last month.
Official sources said the government was further tightening up restrictions with the deployment of cameras to photograph anyone leaving the embattled north and east and travelling to the rest of the country.
The evictions reverberated in the national parliament, where ethnic Tamil lawmakers held up proceedings to protest, officials said.
"Tamil MPs were protesting against the police forcibly taking away the Tamils in buses," a parliamentary official said.
How can anyone compare in their right minds compare the two?The Only mistake the police made was by not arresting them.
Since London bombings , Asian youths are regularly rounded up and taken into custody, In one swoop about 250 Asians were take for security reasons.
Two innocent youths sustained bullet injuries. Their were no protests from any organisations.Sri Lankans are not very good in logical thinking. Their brains are full of religious and superstitious nonsense.
Every one crying out loud when a Tamil get killed or deported or force evacuated, whatever by SL Govt.
I think it is a high time that these so call saviors of human right organization should work un basis to al and wake up to the reality in Sri Lanka.
Eg who talked about the girl who was in sheer shocked in the hospital in front of her bleeding mother, helpless looking on and don’t know what had happened to her brother .
Who gave a about that innocent child the trauma and pain that poor kid had to go through because of barbaric act of LTTE?
Next may be the permanently residing colombo tamils, to evict them too.
This is a disgusting thing to do. The fact that LTTE did it is no excuse for us to do it.
LTTE are a bunch of terrorists even if they are separatists and may be having some causes, like 83 and 56 and so on.
An elected government should have higher standards. On the other hand this government was also elected by the LTTE who stopped the Tamil people from voting.
Don't just blame the Sinhala people. LTTE wanted this to happen and this unintelligent government is doing exactly this.
Why do you think LTTE stopped Ranil from coming to power? LTTE must be laughing their heads off as foreign government think we are barbarians.
The president should be careful about taking advice from whoever he got it this time. He is not such a bad person at heart. The problem is power corrupts.
Some who claimed that they were waiting for visas had no papers to prove.
Others who said that they are waiting for surgery had no hospital records!! Is that a crime? It happens in Israel every day and from time to time in most European countries my friend!!
If u cant, don't say people always support us,with people support we are doing this.
I refuse to believe my country has come to this.. as a country we are getting back to square one very quickly.
Absolutely no use defeating LTTE militarily if you can't win hearts & minds of moderate tamils. Pls don’t push them down the edge & label them LTTE.
Get ur intelligence sorted out to arrest LTTE infiltrations in CMB & other cities.
All these problems are because of this useless lot, They want more problems so that they can fill their pockets.
Every Sri Lankan has a right to live wherever they please after all they are Sri Lankan.
Come what may, a rebellion is forthcoming as this country is falling to pieces thanks to these greedy parasites of our society in Sri Lanka.
The sooner we stop paying political administrators the better it will be for Sri Lanka. When we volunteer to lead the country it is guaranteed that we will have people of class who love Sri Lanka and will sacrifice for Sri Lanka.
The current lot are an absolute useless lot, they are the types who will even kill to get to a political position as there seem to be a lot of money involved in the current senario and it is also benificial thing for them if some kind of conflict happens,therfore it is a fact that they just do not care about us they only care about how much they can get out of a situation.
I doubt there would be even 1% of those that were evicted were LTTEers.
If they really wanted to rope in terrorist, there would have been much easier ways.
A government is responsible for its civilians, clearly by this act its proven that MR's government is not
Sad!
Don't Tamils as Sri Lankans have the right to re-locate to any part in the country???
How could you even call this a democratic state when the goverment starts to bend the laws??? This has to end!! The governments is triggering voilence!!!
This shows that govt acknowledges 2 separate states and giving way to LTTE wish.
As a Sinhalese i'm so sad to see that we still dont think as we are Sri Lankans.
There are better ways to combat terrorism rather than lousy measures like this, Govt has proved that its a bunch of.. running the show...
Civilians are just votes, to be gotten by lying to them. Both MR and VP are doing this and at the end fo the day tis the people's fault for allowing this and not revolting.
Also the sinhala people with their nationalistic ideas will suffer and lose becuase even if prabha is defeated now, until a platform exists for all communities to co-exist amicably, the same issue will be raised again, just in a different form.
There already are two states in Sri Lanka and they are at war with each other.
Normally these lodges are regularly searched and 'cleansed' and all lodge owners are required to register the lodgers with the police, in addition to the tamils obtaining permits to enter the south of Omanthai.
Another point is that, we shouldn't display apathy towards this dangerous trend of trampling of human rights.
We regularly are reminded of the state of current affairs in various forms on a daily basis (i.e. closure of roads for hours on end or VIP motorcades, being threatened by VIP bodyguards on the roads, abductions when an almost impregnable security cordon is in place around most of the country etc.), but this seems to put the icing on the cake.
One needs to only recall the words of Martin Niemöller:
"When the Nazis came for the communists, I remained silent; I was not a communist.
When they locked up the social democrats, I remained silent; I was not a social democrat.
When they came for the trade unionists, I did not speak out; I was not a trade unionist.
When they came for me, there was no one left to speak out."
Seems like an apt description of the state of affairs in Sri Lanka. Good luck to the citizens (including me) of the future "Police State of Sri Lanka".
How much cleansing do we need to do till we achieve perfection.
we will be involved in this process of cleansing for the rest of our lives because nobody is perfect and every one is different.
Maybe it is a situation to carry on from where Hitler let off, To create an Aryan Master Race superior to other Races.
Seig Heil,Seig Heil we can do it as our pompousness, haughtiness,race conciousness, bigotry, and immense arrogance is clearly manifest in every possible action we Sri Lankans do
Yes the threats by the LTTE should be curtailed but the solution is not to aggrevate the situation by creating a another ethnic conflict.
Short term solutions pave way for long term issues. This is what happend after the Sinhala only policy was implimented.
Why cant all the Sri Lankans understand that we are part of one country and one nation, treat every one with respect and honour. It is very evident from the things that are happening around the country, harmony between different religions and ethnic groups are geting strained.
I feel that his is not a ethnic issue (this is not what the ordinary citzen wants) but a political and a economic issue, where the leaders of both parties (GOSL and LTTE) have the need to be in power and to earn money.
This I feel is the ground situation. And we the ordinary citizens have to pay for it. I feel it is time for us to voice our wants and needs in this.
When are they giving the yellow stars?
We are now no beter than all the other countries that engage in enthnic clensing
I can only agree with lanka333. It is indeed like the midnight trains of the holocast, except that this is happening in broad daylight.
These people are being packed off to the 'concentration camp' run by the LTTE in uncleared areas.
If these people cannot come to 'their' capital city what is the point of a unified country?
In the past also we have done a lot of things to turn ordinary tamil people against the sinhalese -many of whom probably do not approve these measures - and the government, and drive them to the LTTE and separatism.
i hope every one now understand there is two different state. and LTTE is the only solution for Tamils
this is ridicules by sending them back to north and east we are sort telling them indirectly you belong to North and East further strengthen LTTE’s argument I cant believe how stupid our politicos can be.
The lame stupid excuse they gave make me blood squirm
There are millions of tamils in government controlled areas.
to say that bc 376 without identification were sent to their villages government wants to ethically cleanse colombo is absurd.
We support and coporate all the tough measures impliment by Government of Sri Lanka to defeat LTTE terrorists.
in buses, trains, on the roads without any exception and at all times whether it be day or night. The more vulnerable areas are where the forces operate even check points.
In addition to Colombo being a well known target, other main cities like Kandy Galle Hambantota etc are also targets for the LTTE.
The irony is the leader has received an award for human rights work on behalf f the "disappeared" of 1988-1990.
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