Governor to hold Conference on Trincomalee violence

[TamilNet, Saturday, 14 January 2006, 13:38 GMT]
North East Provincial Governor, Mr.Tyronne Fernando, has called for a conference to discuss the volatile situation in the Trincomalee district following frequent general shut down by rival parties. The conference earlier scheduled to be held on Thursday has now been advanced to Wednesday evening and will be held in Colombo, provincial council sources said.

The NEP Governor decided to call this conference following his meeting with Sri Lanka's President Mahinda Rajapakse during the weekend over the tense situation in Trincomalee due to several violent incidents, sources said.

Parliamentarians of the Trincomalee district and Mr.M.K.A.de S.Gunawardene, a former parliamentarian and the SLFP Trincomalee district organizer have been invited to the conference.

Since third of January, Trincomalee and its suburbs have been under hartal continuously with breaks of one or two days. Earlier the Tamil Resurgence Forum (TRF) called for a general shut down and the closure of government offices and banks in protest to the killing of five Tamil students and demanding the withdrawal of government troops from the east port town. There was no hartal on Thursday when the funeral of five slain Tamil students took place. But it continued on Friday till Sunday as called for by TRF.

On Monday and Tuesday last week shops were opened for Hajji and Thaipongal festivals but the government offices and banks were closed following the request made by TRF. Hajji festival was on Wednesday.

However, two Sinhala organizations called for hartal from Thursday to Sunday including Thai Pongal day that fell on Saturday. These organizations demanded closure of shops, government offices and banks and complete stoppage of State and private sector bus services condemning the killing of Sinhalese civilians in Trincomalee and naval sailors in Dvora gunboat explosion.