8 theSun | WEDNESDAY JUNE 17 2009

news without borders

Tamil Tigers
Rival rallies as Iran prepares ‘reorganise’
struggle for

for vote recount REUTERSPIX

TEHERAN: Supporters of Iranian
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
and his defeated challenger staged
rival rallies yesterday as the nation
grappled with its worst crisis since
the 1979 Islamic revolution.
As the authorities imposed a
clampdown on foreign media, the
election watchdog said it was ready
to order a recount of the election that
returned Ahmadinejad to power amid
opposition claims of vote-rigging.
State television broadcast footage
showing huge crowds of flag-wav-
ing demonstrators packing a central
square in Teheran at a regime-organ-
ised rally, while a correspondent said
a similar rally was also being held by
supporters of defeated presidential
candidate Mirhossein Mousavi.
However, AFP could not reach the
site of the demonstrations as Iran has
banned journalists working for foreign
media from covering such events.
A pro-Mousavi demonstration
turned violent on Monday with seven
people killed and several more wound-
ed in street battles outside the local base
of the Basij militia, state radio said.
Iran’s election watchdog said it was
ready to do a recount of Friday’s hotly-
disputed vote that has exposed deep
divisions in the oil-rich nation of 71
million people.
In a bid to avoid further clashes,
Mousavi had urged his supporters
not to turn up for their own rally. But
a correspondent with Iran’s English
language Press TV said it had turned
into a “massive” demonstration.
Iran, which has been at loggerheads
with the West over its nuclear drive, is
facing an international backlash over
its crackdown against the opposition
protestors and the validity of the elec-
tion itself.
The EU said it was “very concerned”
about the unrest, while French President
Nicolas Sarkozy said bluntly that there
was “fraud” in the election, the strongest
comments so far from the West.
The authorities have warned they
would nip
any “velvet revolution” in the bud and
have rounded up scores of people in Te-
heran and other cities, including promi-
nent reformist leaders close to former
president Mohammad Khatami.
Some telephone, texting and Internet
services have also been disrupted, and
protestors have been turning to Twit-
ter to spread word about the dramatic
events in their currently.
State radio said at least seven people
were killed when “thugs” attacked and
vandalised government buildings at
the end of Monday’s pro-Mousavi rally,
which had been banned by the authori-
ties as an illegal gathering.
“A military post was attacked with
the intention of looting its weapons. Un-
fortunately, seven of our citizens were
killed and a number of them injured,”
it said.
Medical sources suggested the toll
could be as high as eight.
Iran’s
supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei
has ordered the election watchdog the
Guardians Council to probe the vote-
rigging allegations raised by Mousavi,
who had declared himself the victor on
polling day.
“If the Guardians Council reaches
the conclusion that such offences as
buying votes or using fake identity
cards have been committed ... it will
order a recount,” council spokesman
Abbas Ali Kadkhodai told the official
news agency IRNA.
Top dissident cleric Grand Ayatollah
Hossein Ali Montazeri, a one-time heir
to revolutionary leader Ayatollah Ruhol-
lah Khomeini who was later sidelined,
called on the youth of the “oppressed
nation” to pursue peaceful rallies.
And in a rare criticism, parliament
speaker Ali Larijani, a conservative
rival to Ahmadinejad, blamed the inte-
rior minister for attacks on civilians and
university students. –AFP
separate state
COLOMBO: The few surviving leaders of Sri Lan-
ka’s defeated Tamil Tigers announced yesterday
they were reorganising the rebel movement and
forming a “transnational government.”
The rebel group’s international relations chief,
Selvarasa Pathmanathan, said in a recorded
message that the organisation would continue to
pursue its aim of a separate Tamil state despite
the rout of its army and death of its leaders.
“The struggle of people of Tamil Eelam (the
separate state the Tigers fought for) has reached
a new state,” he said. “It is time now for us to
move forward with our political vision towards
our freedom.”
Pathmanathan, who is better known as K.P. and
worked as the group’s main international arms
smuggler, said they were setting up what he called
a “Provisional Transnational Government of Tamil
Eelam.” He said their overseas-based legal adviser,
Rudrakumaran Vishwanathan, would head a com-
mittee to decide a course of action that would be
“within democratic principles.”
It is not clear from where Pathmanathan, who
is wanted by Interpol for his arms smuggling op-
erations, issued the voice message.
It comes nearly a month after the leader of the
Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) Velupillai
Prabhakaran and most of his deputies were killed by
government forces. The pro-rebel Tamilnet website
meanwhile called for a “democratic and inclusive”
organisation to keep up the separatist drive.
“The need of the time now is the metamorpho-
Mousavi sis of the existing infrastructure into a democratic
attends and inclusive transnational government of Eelam
a rally in Tamils,” Tamilnet said. “While the government in
support exile is a conventional phenomenon that needs
of him in a host country, the transnational government is
Teheran. a novel experiment that has no precedence,” it
added. – AFP
Jobless Taiwan man steals
just for free prison lunch
TAIPEI: A jobless Taiwan man released from prison stole a box
of cotton swabs just to get arrested again because he “could
not forget the police department boxed lunches”, officers and
local media said yesterday.
The homeless man in Taipei first stole a pair of shoes on
Sunday, was detained and released, the Liberty Times said. He
then resorted to stealing again the next day just to get back
inside and be fed for free.
“If someone’s not doing well and comes in around meal time,
we’ll definitely prepare food,” said an officer, surnamed Wang,
at the Hsinyi District police station, which handled the case but
again released the suspect, Tsou Hao-lan. – Reuters

Yemen hunts kidnappers after

at least three foreigners found dead
SANAA: Security forces pressed on with a
manhunt in northern Yemen yesterday after the
killings of three foreign women, as the fate of six
other foreign kidnap victims remained unclear.
“The security forces are continuing a huge
search operation in Saada province to track down
the kidnappers of the nine foreign nationals,” said
an interior ministry official.
On Monday, the ministry confirmed that
at least three hostages had been killed: two
Germans and a South Korean, all women. Their
bodies were found in the province’s Noshour
region.
It was the first time in almost a decade that a
kidnapping in Yemen has resulted in deaths.
“Preparations are underway for the transfer to
Sanaa of the bodies of the two Germans and the
South Korean ahead of their repatriation,” said Ali
al-Qatabri, the director of Saada’s Al-Jumhuriya
hospital.
Seven Germans, including three children and
two female nurses, were abducted last week in
the volatile Saada province along with a male
British engineer and the woman from South
Korea.
There were conflicting reports coming out of
Yemen on Monday. A local official put the number
of dead at seven, adding that two of the children
had reportedly been found alive.
Another source close to the investigation said
examinations had shown the corpses, including
one child, had been found shot and stabbed.
The missing nine belong to an international
relief group that has worked for 35 years at a
hospital in Saada, which borders Saudi Arabia,
according to Yemeni officials.
South Korea yesterday confirmed that one of
its citizens has been murdered.
“The government expresses anger and shock
over the confirmed killing of our citizen ... and
seriously condemns this,” the foreign ministry
said in a statement.
It did not identify the woman but South Ko-
rean media reports and officials gave her name
as Eom Young-Sun, 34.
A report in yesterday’s edition of Sueddeut-
sche Zeitung said German intelligence services
believed all nine hostages had been killed by Al
Qaeda but did not substantiate its claims.
Local sources said the group was a Christian
Baptist organisation that also has a medical team
in the hospital at Jebla, south of Sanaa, where a
militant killed three American doctors in Decem-
ber 2002.
Foreigners are often kidnapped in Yemen by
tribesmen to use as bargaining chips with the
government over local disputes. More than 200
foreigners have been abducted over the past
15 years.
All have previously been freed unharmed,
except for three Britons and an Australian seized
by militants in December 1998 who were killed
when security forces stormed the kidnappers’
hideout. – AFP