Mobs attack Sinhala-Tamil Cultural Festival in Colombo

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 29 October 2003, 06:07 GMT]
Four persons including two journalists were wounded when a Sinhala nationalist mob attacked the Sinhala Tamil Cultural Festival at the New Town Hall in Colombo Wednesday morning.
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Big demo in Mannar against Police rape

[TamilNet, Monday, 27 October 2003, 09:43 GMT]
More than two thousand people blocked the Mannar- Medawachchiya road Monday morning, demonstrating against alleged molestation and rape of women in Uyilankulam by Sri Lankan armed forces last week. Traffic on this key road to Mannar was blocked for more than two hours due to the demonstration. Hundreds came from villages around Uyilankulam to take part in the protest, TamilNet’s Mannar correspondent said.
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Salinity endangers Northwest Vanni farmland

[TamilNet, Monday, 27 October 2003, 00:10 GMT]
Vast tracks of farmlands in impoverished villages close to the northern and western coast of Vanni face imminent danger from ocean waters penetrating inland making the arable land unsuitable for cultivation. Civil Engineering staff in Kilinochchi involved in development planning say that although plans are available to convert the areas in northwest coast including Jaffna peninsula resistant to creeping salinity, they are awaiting financial resources to be earmarked for such activity as part of Northeast rehabilitation.
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Batticaloa TULF tells ‘Sangaree’ to step down

[TamilNet, Sunday, 26 October 2003, 11:33 GMT]
The Batticaloa branch of the Tamil United Liberation Front resolved Sunday that the party’s leader Mr. V. Anandasangaree MP should step down. “If he fails to do so the secretary general of the TULF should convene the central committee and take necessary measures to remove him from his position as the party leader”, states a resolution passed Sunday by this politically strategic branch in the east.
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Curfew lifted in Kinniya

[TamilNet, Friday, 24 October 2003, 06:47 GMT]
Sixteen-hour curfew imposed in Kinniya, 16 k.m. south of Trincomalee was lifted at 6 a.m. Friday morning. However, the re-imposition of curfew depends on developments during the day, police sources said.
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SLA stand scuttles Munai peace meet

[TamilNet, Thursday, 23 October 2003, 19:01 GMT]
A meeting convened by the National Human Rights Commission in Jaffna to amicably resolve the row between Sri Lanka army (SLA) and fishermen in Munai in Pt. Pedro ended inconclusively after the SLA insisted that it had nothing to do with the damages suffered by villagers during Wednesday’s incidents.
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Soldiers scuttled boats, allege Munai fishermen

[TamilNet, Thursday, 23 October 2003, 03:01 GMT]
Fishermen in Munai alleged Thursday that Sri Lanka army troops in the area had scuttled five boats and cut the moorings of another two in retaliation to Wednesday’s incidents in this coastal village on the outskirts of Pt. Pedro town in Jaffna. Latest reports said that SLA has prevented injured persons from being taken to hospital.
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Mannar villagers angered by rape want Police out

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 21 October 2003, 12:46 GMT]
Villagers of Uyilankulam, east of Mannar, angered by the rape of a retarded woman living with her parents on Saturday night demanded that Sri Lankan Police posts in the area should be removed forthwith. The 32-year-old woman was admitted to the Anuradhapura Hospital on Sunday after she was allegedly raped brutally by two Policemen who had come to buy cigarettes at her father's shop.
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Maj. Gen. Fonseka reproves Jaffna media

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 21 October 2003, 11:36 GMT]
Commander of Sri Lankan armed forces in Jaffna, Maj. Gen. Sarath Foneseka told a group of northern journalists Tuesday that newspapers in the peninsula publish “half information’ and distorted reports intended to make people angry at the military. Speaking to representatives of the North Ceylon Journalists’ Association about recent attacks on media persons in Jaffna by Sri Lankan armed forces soldiers, he said: “We are not hundred percent happy about the way media people in Jaffna are carrying out their jobs”.
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Vadamaradchi residents ban removal of coastal sand

[TamilNet, Monday, 20 October 2003, 18:54 GMT]
Residents of Kudathanai and Manalkadu areas in the Vadamaradchi east division in Jaffna district Monday imposed a ban on removing coastal sand from the northern coast. Hundreds of vehicles that had gone to these areas to remove sand returned empty due to the ban, sources said.
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STF commandos stay on in hospital

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 15 October 2003, 13:57 GMT]
Special Task Force (STF), the elite counter insurgency arm of the Sri Lankan armed forces, said Wednesday it would further delay moving out of the Thirukkovil District Hospital, 76 kilometres south of Batticaloa. The hospital, which is in the midst of a large Tamil village, has been garrisoned by the STF for 17 years despite protests by local rights activists and politicians.
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Massive crowds pack Mannar Pongu Thamil

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 15 October 2003, 13:55 GMT]
More than thirty thousand people packed the Mannar town grounds Wednesday for Pongu Thamil Wednesday. Large processions led by political and religious leaders started from three corners of the Mannar town at 3. 30 p.m. and converged on the ground one hour later. "We want our land", "soldiers! Go back to your homes", the marchers shouted.
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Northern Principals propose fully empowered IA

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 14 October 2003, 17:00 GMT]
The Northern Province Principals' Association (NPPA) said Tuesday that it has sent a memorandum to Mr. Velupillai Pirapakaran, the leader of the Liberation Tigers, urging him to ensure that the proposed Interim Administration (IA) for the Northeast is vested with fiscal, executive and judicial powers.
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Sinhala nationalists' convoy to LTTE camp turned back

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 14 October 2003, 11:25 GMT]
Sri Lankan Police Tuesday peacefully turned back a large convoy of vehicles in which activists of Sihala Urumaya (SU), an ultra Sinhala nationalist party, were travelling towards Kurankupanchaan Kulam in Southern Trincomalee, vowing to enter the camp of the Liberation Tigers, which Colombo claims to be in territory under its control. More than a hundred Buddhist monks and about three hundred SU activists began the drive to the LTTE's camp from Kantalai around 1 p.m. Tuesday with the slogan "The arms are yours, the land is ours".
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Criminals terrorise Udupiddy under SLA's aegis

[TamilNet, Monday, 13 October 2003, 18:22 GMT]
Civil society groups, residents and school students from Udupiddy in Jaffna Monday complained to the Sri Lankan Monitoring Mission (SLMM) and the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) that Sri Lanka army is providing special protection to local criminals who are on a bloody rampage in the village. One of the criminals attacked and grievously wounded Mr. A. S. Sivagnanam, senior resident of Udupiddy, with an army bayonet Sunday at the Veerapthirar Temple.
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Molest try fails, soldiers threaten woman

[TamilNet, Monday, 13 October 2003, 16:29 GMT]
A young woman who reported an attempt by two Sri Lanka army soldiers to molest her Sunday morning in Manalkaadu, a village on Jaffnaís southeastern coast, was threatened by colleagues of her attackers not to speak about the incident to anyone, her family said. Relatives told TamilNet the womanís husband had fought off the two soldiers while they were trying to snatch her infant and to drag her into the shrub jungle by the road.
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Human skulls, bones unearthed in Thiraikerni

[TamilNet, Monday, 13 October 2003, 14:15 GMT]
Human remains were found in a pit near the Periyathambiran Temple in Thiruaikerni, 57km south of Batticaloa town in the Batticaloa-Pottuvil road when Thirukerni residents were cleaning the temple compound during a shramadana effort Sunday.
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SLA, Police torture Jaffna resident hung by feet

[TamilNet, Sunday, 12 October 2003, 11:37 GMT]
"Soldiers stopped me at the Maambalam junction last night when I was going home, dragged me inside a building there, hung me upside down by my feet and brutally assaulted me until I fainted, said Mr. Balasingham Daiyaniharan, 21, a resident of Ariyalai, in his statement to the Jaffna magistrate, Mr. R. P Vicknarajah, at the Teaching Hospital in the northern town Sunday noon. Three civilians and two journalists attacked and injured by SLA soldiers and Police Saturday night have been admitted for treatment at Jaffna Teaching Hospital.
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Salt threatens eight thousand acres in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Saturday, 11 October 2003, 18:43 GMT]
Yields in more than eight thousand acres of rice fields in Kopay South in the peninsula are steadily declining due to salination of the lands from waters seeping from the saltpans of Chemmani, on the eastern outskirts of the Jaffna town, local farmers told TamilNet Saturday.
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Police attack journalists in Jaffna melee

[TamilNet, Saturday, 11 October 2003, 14:39 GMT]
Four journalists were brutally assaulted while covering a clash between Police and crowds in the neighbourhood of Maambalam Junction in Jaffna town Saturday evening. One of them, Mr. K. Ithayapavan, a staff reporter of the daily Valampuri, was admitted to Jaffna Hospital with a severe head injury. Police hit him on his head with batons and smashed his camera after he showed his press accreditation card and identified himself as a local journalist, according to his colleagues at the Valampuri.
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