SLA offensive thwarted in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Monday, 12 March 2001, 13:28 GMT]
Heavy fighting erupted along the Eluthumadduval -Nagarkovil axis in Jaffna from around 10 p.m. Sunday night to 2 a.m. Monday morning when columns of Sri Lanka army infantry backed by armour and heavy artillery attempted to overrun and break through the Forward Defence Localities of the Liberation Tigers, sources in Jaffna said.
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Saw navy men strangling Uthayakumar -daughter

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 07 March 2001, 17:34 GMT]
"I saw the soldiers beating up my father with a club and he cried out in pain. My brother and I cried when we saw this. Our father told us that he was being taken to the Tharapuram Navy camp and asked us to come there in the morning. The soldiers then took him away. We saw our father being walked down the street later around 10.30 p.m." said Anusiya Uthayakumar, 16, the daughter of the man who was allegedly beaten and strangled to death by Navy personnel who arrested him on the night of February 28, in her evidence in the Mannar court Wednesday. Answering a question by Inspector of Police (Mannar crime branch) S.Abeyawardena during her evidence, Anusiya said that she also saw the naval ratings strangling her father while they were beating him up.
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23 beaten up for wanting to see homes

[TamilNet, Saturday, 03 March 2001, 20:34 GMT]
Twenty three civilians who attempted to visit their homes in Nunavil and Manthuvil, east of Jaffna town, were assaulted and beaten up severely with clubs and wires by Sri Lanka army soldiers on Thursday 1 March. "The soldiers seized our national identity cards and chased us away" one of them said. Several others who went Saturday to visit their homes in this sector were assaulted too. SLA personnel at the Kaithady civil affairs office of the military interrogated and reprimanded the 23 who went Saturday to get back their identity cards. The chairman of the Chavakachcheri Palmyrah Co-operative Society, Mr. T Poopalasingham among those who were beaten up on 1 March.
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Students condemn Batticaloa Brigadier's comments

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 28 February 2001, 11:56 GMT]
Undergraduates of the Eastern University demonstrated Tuesday condemning the statement of the Sri Lanka army's Batticaloa brigade commander that their 'Pongu Thamil' program had been organised by the Liberation Tigers. Col. V.L.R Anthonis, the SLA commander for Batticaloa, charged Monday at a meeting for local journalists and school principals that the Liberation Tigers had organised the 'Pongu Thamil' rally by students and teachers of the Eastern University on 20 February. .
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Bribe demands worsen villagers' woes

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 28 February 2001, 01:24 GMT]
Jaffna Municipal Council Mayor Mr.N.Raviraj alleged Tuesday that Sri Lanka Army (SLA) soldiers are demanding bribes from civilians who are seeking permission from the SLA to go back to their war ravaged towns in Thenmaradchchi in Jaffna peninsula to collect personal belongings.
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SLA clamps total embargo on Vaakarai

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 27 February 2001, 08:55 GMT]
The Sri Lanka army clamped a complete embargo on the Vaakarai region, 60 km. north of Batticaloa, Tuesday, preventing people from taking even essential goods such as rice, sugar, milk powder, kerosene, flour etc., which were permitted under severe restrictions on supplies to this region earlier. Soldiers at the Maankerni check post, currently the sole entry point to this large poverty stricken area in the northern corner of Batticaloa, seized all goods in the possession of civilians going to Vaakarai Tuesday morning, mostly their weekly and monthly provisions allowed in limited stipulated quantities by the SLA, purchased in Valaichenai. "I spent almost all my weekly wage on basic provisions for my family. Now I have neither money nor the provisions," lamented Manikkam Thangarasa, a wood cutter from Vaakarai who returned to Valaichenai Tuesday afternoon all the food stuff and kerosene he was taking home was seized by the army at the Maankerni check post.
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Vanni ban leaves little to take

[TamilNet, Monday, 26 February 2001, 18:37 GMT]
A note at the bottom of a circular by Sri Lanka's Ministry of Defence listing the things that are not allowed to the Vanni sent to government officials in Vavuniya, reveals the extensive and arbitrary manner in which Colombo's economic embargo is imposed on the northern region.
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7000 more soldiers needed to end war - PM

[TamilNet, Sunday, 25 February 2001, 17:30 GMT]
"About 3500 youths have been enlisted in the Army in the recent days following a request by the government. The enlistment of 7000 others in three-year period would help to end the war," said Sri Lanka's Prime Minister (PM) Mr. Ratnasiri Wickremanayake Sunday while addressing a gathering after declaring open a new operating theatre in the army hospital in Colombo. The operating theatre has been constructed at a cost of 6.2 million rupees by the institutions coming under the Plantation Ministry.
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Youth shot dead in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Friday, 16 February 2001, 16:27 GMT]
A youth was shot dead by the Sri Lanka army in Nanthaavil, north of Jaffna town Friday morning. SLA sources told Tamilnet that the youth was shot near the checkpoint at the Amman temple in Nanthaavil. The area was searched by the SLA following the incident.
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Sri Lanka taps Lover's Day to fight war

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 14 February 2001, 14:35 GMT]
The Sri Lankan government Wednesday launched "let's love our armed forces" campaign to raise funds for its cash strapped defence establishment. The program was started on Valentine's Day to "foster a bond of love" between soldiers fighting the Liberation Tigers in the north and east and the youth in the other parts of the island, according to the organizers of the campaign.
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Peace hopes dim as Sri Lanka hardens stance

[TamilNet, Monday, 05 February 2001, 22:43 GMT]
(News Feature) Sri Lanka's President Chandrika Kumaratunge hardened her stance on the island's ethnic conflict Sunday, dismissing the Liberation Tigers' extended unilateral ceasefire as "meaningless" and insisting the war would only be stopped when negotiations "progressed satisfactorily," dashing hopes amongst Tamil political parties of possible peace talks between the government and the LTTE.
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Three arrested in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Friday, 02 February 2001, 16:20 GMT]
Three youth who went to purchase tickets to travel to Colombo at the Rehabilitation and Reconstruction Authority for the North office in Jaffna town were arrested and detained by the Sri Lanka army, the Human Rights Commission said Friday. The youth, who were taken into custody on Wednesday, are being held at the 51-2 brigade headquarters, the HR office said. The three are from the village of Atchelu, north of Jaffna town.
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SLA tenders qualified apology as officer retires

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 31 January 2001, 21:30 GMT]
The Sri Lanka army in Batticaloa town Wednesday tendered a qualified public apology for massacring hundreds innocent civilians of this eastern district in the past in a handbill and over loud hailers. The SLA handbill, among other things, states "on some occasions people had to be murdered on the orders of certain commanders".
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PM invokes Ruhuna ethos for SLA recruiting

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 30 January 2001, 16:49 GMT]
A program to recruit ten thousand youth to the Sri Lanka army was begun Tuesday the Buddhist temple in the island's main pilgrimage centre. Sri Lanka's prime minister, Mr.Ratnasiri Wickremanayaka, who chaired the function said that it was a great achievement by the people of Ruhuna to have inaugurated the program to win the war from Kataragama. The southern interior of the island was called Ruhuna in medieval Sinhala. It is celebrated by Sinhala Buddhist nationalists as the ancient seat of resistance to Tamil dominance where Sinhala rulers mustered recruits to wage war on the armies of the Chola empire. Senior SLA officers and Buddhist monks took part in the program.
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Court to hear Mailanthanai massacre case

[TamilNet, Sunday, 28 January 2001, 23:34 GMT]
(Newsfeature) The Mailanthanai massacre case in which 21 Sri Lanka army soldiers are accused of hacking to death 35 Tamils, including women, in a remote Batticaloa village on 9 August 1992 will be taken up for hearing in Colombo Monday lawyers appearing for the families of the victims said. "Justice delayed is justice denied. As with most cases in which SLA soldiers have been accused of massacring innocent Tamil civilians, a patently deliberate procrastinating strategy drawing on untenable pretexts is causing inordinate delays. This benefits the perpetrators of the murders," Mr.N. Kandasamy, a senior human rights activist in Colombo who has been monitoring the case for nine years told TamilNet Sunday.
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SLA ambush kills one

[TamilNet, Saturday, 27 January 2001, 14:38 GMT]
Sri Lanka Army (SLA) soldiers lying in ambush in the jungles of Kirimichchaikulam in the Vaakarai region, about 62 km. north of Batticaloa opened fire, killing one civilian and injuring three others. According to villagers the incident occurred around 2 p.m. on Friday.
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ICRC outlines war zone activities

[TamilNet, Sunday, 21 January 2001, 19:49 GMT]
The International Committee of the Red Cross transported 3807 patients by ship from Jaffna to Trincomalee and took 1061.89 metric tons of drugs and postal bags to the northern peninsula in 2000, according to the annual report of the humanitarian organisation. Two ships, the Java Gulf and the Java Gold, ply between Jaffna and Trincomalee under the ICRC flag, sustaining a lifeline to the debilitated and chronically ill supplied health service in the war torn peninsula. Briefing journalists in Batticaloa Sunday, the ICRC's press officer, Mr. Harasha Gunawardana, said that his organisation had transferred the bodies of 270 Liberation Tigers and those of 209 Sri Lanka army soldiers killed in the war during 2000.
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Dissonant developments jar SLA music

[TamilNet, Saturday, 20 January 2001, 17:17 GMT]
The Sri Lanka Army went ahead Saturday evening with a music show it had organized in Batticaloa with an audience comprising government officials despite the general shut down in the east coast town and its suburbs. Tamil musicians and singers from Colombo who has been booked for the show did not turn up, sources said.
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SLA firing injures two

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 16 January 2001, 07:23 GMT]
A 11-year old girl and another woman were injured in indiscriminate firing by Sri Lanka Army at Pillaiyaradi, 4 km. north of Batticaloa, around 10 a.m. on Monday said sources.
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Teachers support student-protest

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 16 January 2001, 07:21 GMT]
The North East General Teachers' Union (NEGTU) issued a statement on Monday supporting the students' protest organised by the Jaffna University Community. In a statement issued Monday evening the NEGTU said that the present war should be stopped and permanent peace should be ushered in the northeastern province enabling teachers to perform their duties without any hindrance.
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