Jaffna Group warns of attacks if SLA harassment is not stopped

[TamilNet, Thursday, 15 December 2005, 14:24 GMT]
If the increasing incidents of rounding up of civilians, and cordon and search of Tamil areas by the Sri Lanka Army (SLA) soldiers continue, campaign of attacks against SLA will intensify in Jaffna, warned an organization of Tamil youths called "Roaring Tamil Force," in a memorandum submitted to the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission (SLMM) offices in Jaffna Thursday. Twenty-five youths identifying themselves as belonging to the Group delivered the memorandum at the Temple Road offices of the SLMM, sources said.

The memorandum further demanded that:

• SLA troops should stop rounding up civilians,
• Tamil youths who have been arrested and held without charges should be released immediately,
• Security forces must return to their barracks without interfering with peoples' daily activities and disturbing normalcy of life in the district,
• Construction of new SLA checkposts and camps should be stopped, and
• All military activities that affect the education of Tamil students should be stopped immediately.

The Group admitted responsibility for the recent attacks against the SLA in Jaffna district.

Meanwhile, Jaffna Campus Students Union said that it condemns roundup of students Thursday and accused the SLA of threatening campus students living in outside-campus accomodations. The Student Union officials further said that incidents of harassment of campus students by the SLA troops have markedly increased in the past few days.