Members of the Tamil National Alliance and its constituent parties are to go on hunger strike in Vavuniya on Wednesday, to show solidarity with the over 300 reported Tamil detainees protesting across the island.

According to Ceylon Today, TNA Spokesperson and the Jaffna District Parliamentarian Suresh Premachandran stated that various parties, including the TULF, PLOTE, EPRLF, TELO TAK, TNLF and DPF would be on hunger strike on Wednesday, urging the government to release all Tamil political prisoners.

The recent murder of Canadian-Tamil  Anthonypillai Mahendrarasa, has underscored the “enduring ethnic violence” in Sri Lanka, reported the Globe and Mail on Tuesday, after the slain businessman’s funeral last week near Montreal.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has criticised pressure on Sri Lanka to allow an international probe into war crimes and human rights abuses, Russian media reported on Wednesday.

Speaking at a meeting with Sri Lankan External Affairs Minister GL Peiris, Mr Lavrov stressed that Sri Lanka has already had a home-grown and trustworthy commission to look into war crimes.

A group of young Tamil activists burnt copies of the 1972 constitution, at the same spot where the mother of the LTTE’s leader, Parvathi Amma, was cremated, TamilNet reported today.

Over 40 youths burnt the copies at Oorani cemetery in Valvettithurai on Tuesday afternoon.

According to TamilNet, the youths raised some slogans and distributed leaflets to the public before leaving the scene.

A draft of the constitution was burnt by ITAK leader SJV Chelvanayakam and others, 40 years ago in Jaffna.

The leader of the Tamil National Alliance, R. Sampanthan, has called for a removal of military camps in the Northeast of the island.

Speaking to Tamil media, Sampanthan said his party would continue to campaign for a reduction in military presence.

"The current ratio of security personnel in the north of the country is one soldier to every eight civilians. This is too much and we have highlighted the need to reduce the military presence to restore normalcy to this region," he said.

Speaking to Charles Haviland of the BBC, General Sarath Fonseka, asserted that he was in charge of the military in 2009, and not the political leadership.

See BBC report here.

Criticising "some people", for "trying to hide their face when it comes to war crimes and other issues", as "it give the impression to the rest of the world, that these people are guilty of something,"  General Fonseka said that he would "not be scared".