General shut in NE against EPDP atrocity

[TamilNet, Thursday, 29 November 2001, 08:32 GMT]
Schools, shops, government offices and banks were closed in the districts of Batticaloa, Trincomalee, Vavuniya, Mannar and Jaffna in response to a call by the Tamil National Alliance for a general shut down in the north and east to protest against the Eelam People's Democratic Party, a major coalition partner of President Chandrika Kumaratunga's regime, for killing two civilians and attacking and grievously wounding four TNA candidates in Kayts, an island off the northern peninsula.
Full story >>

Buddhist monks condemn autonomy for Tamils

[TamilNet, Monday, 26 November 2001, 16:41 GMT]
Hundreds of Buddhist monks protested in Colombo Monday against granting an interim administrative council to run the northern and eastern parts of the island. The Sri Lankan government alleges that there is an insidious conspiracy by the United National party against the Sinhala people to hand over the northeastern province to the Liberation Tigers. President Chandrika Kumaratunga and Sinhala nationalists say that granting the LTTE the interim administration is treason. The protest was organised by the National Movement for the Defence of the Unitary State.
Full story >>

Negotiations to end war said treason

[TamilNet, Friday, 23 November 2001, 17:35 GMT]
The United National Party Friday vehemently rejected Sri Lankan government's assertions that it is involved in an insidious conspiracy with the Liberation Tigers against the Sinhala people. State run print and electronic media gave wide publicity since Thursday to a telephone conversation allegedly between ex- UNP Parliamentarian Dr.Jayalath Jayawardena and an agent of the LTTE.
Full story >>

Home Guards on the rampage in Serunuwara

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 21 November 2001, 20:16 GMT]
Three houses belonging to Tamil villagers were burnt down and several civilians were severely assaulted by Police Security Assistants (PSAs or 'Home Guards') in LB 3 Channel area in Serunuwara division, in the Trincomalee District Tuesday night. Bicycles and motorcycles were also damaged by the PSAs, sources said.
Full story >>

Protest against Police atrocity in Batticaloa

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 21 November 2001, 16:33 GMT]
More than a hundred people demonstrated against the Sri Lanka Police in Eravur, 14 kilometres north of Batticaloa Wednesday, for indiscriminately shelling and firing on a Tamil neighbourhood Tuesday night, killing five persons, including an 11 year old boy, and wounding nine civilians. The protestors stood with the coffins of three persons who were killed in the incident across the main road in Eravur around 5 p.m., blocking traffic for more than half an hour.
Full story >>

DIG says will consider Jaffna weapons issue

[TamilNet, Friday, 16 November 2001, 11:01 GMT]
The Sri Lanka Police said Friday that it has requested the Eelam People's Democratic Party (EPDP), a major coalition partner of the People's Alliance government, not to go about in the Jaffna peninsula with weapons during the 2001 general elections.
Full story >>

'Colombo's largesse stained with Tamil blood' -Selvam

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 14 November 2001, 21:35 GMT]
"Every rupee that the Sri Lankan government gives you through its quisling to buy your vote is stained with the blood of our people who were killed in places of refuge and worship, the tears of our women who were gang raped here in Mannar and in every part of the north and east. The Chandrika regime is liberally spending money through its Tamil lackey to bribe our people, to pacify them and thereby show the world that our struggle for justice is a terrorist problem. The people of Mannar have always been patriotic.
Full story >>

Five soldiers killed in Mutur attacks

[TamilNet, Saturday, 10 November 2001, 12:04 GMT]
At least five Sri Lanka army soldiers were killed Saturday afternoon in two attacks by the Liberation Tigers in Mutur, security sources said. Four soldiers were killed in a claymore blast and one was killed in an ambush in the general area of Mallikaithivu, on the coastal road from Mutur to Batticaloa
Full story >>

Jaffna missing persons' parents continue protest

[TamilNet, Saturday, 10 November 2001, 08:14 GMT]
"Arrests, deaths and destruction will continue in our land until our struggle succeeds. To put an end to such tragedies we have to succeed in our people's struggle. If we speak out for our nation then we shall win our struggle for which blood is being spilled," said Rev. Fr. T. Jeyakumar, the head of the Human Development Centre (HUDEC), addressing a demonstration and protest sit in near the Muniappar temple in Jaffna town Saturday by more than 200 parents and relatives of persons who went missing after being arrested by the Sri Lanka army in 1996-97 in the northern peninsula. The protest was organised by the Missing Persons' Guardian Association (MPGA) and the Jaffna Mothers' Front. "We will continue the protest tomorrow as well," the secretary of the MPGA told Tamilnet.
Full story >>

Protest in Batticaloa over assault on reporter

[TamilNet, Friday, 09 November 2001, 12:13 GMT]
More than 150 journalists, social activists, parents and workers demonstrated in Batticaloa Friday to protest against officials of the Department of Education for assaulting a reporter from the ëThinakathirí, the Tamil daily published in the eastern town.
Full story >>

NE doctors strike over pay discrimination

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 07 November 2001, 12:16 GMT]
More than four hundred residential medical officers serving in Northeast provincial hospitals went on strike Wednesday, demanding that they should also be paid special mission allowance as presently awarded to non-residential medical officers. "The medical services in government hospitals in the northeast province have come to a standstill Wednesday due to the strike as more than one hundred non-residential doctors also have struck work to express their solidarity,"a spokesman of the Government Medical Officers' Association (GMOA) said Wednesday.
Full story >>

UNP protests, Tamil campaign begins in Vavuniya

[TamilNet, Sunday, 04 November 2001, 21:16 GMT]
United National Party candidates and supporters Sunday staged a protest against election violence in Vavuniya town while the Tamil National Alliance opened a campaign office on Vairavar Kovil Road in the town centre and held a joint propaganda meeting in Mudaliyakulam in the Cheddikulam division later in the day. The UNP demonstrated against the attack on the party's chief candidate for the district on Friday night in which gunmen suspected to be members of a Tamil Para-military group operating with the Sri Lanka army opened fire on the vehicle in which he was travelling.
Full story >>

'Our land's freedom is our birthright' - Selvam

[TamilNet, Friday, 02 November 2001, 18:48 GMT]
"The Tamils of Ampara have had to face the brunt of both Sinhala chauvinism and Muslim intimidation. But they have refused to submit or yield their national pride as Tamils. We have to show the world that we will never sell our dignity for a mess of pottage, that we will not be intimidated by the terror that the Sri Lankan state has unleashed on us.
Full story >>

Tamil Alliance files nominations in East and Vavuniya

[TamilNet, Friday, 26 October 2001, 16:42 GMT]
The Tamil national alliance filed nominations for the electoral districts of Trincomalee, Batticaloa, Ampara and the Vanni Friday. The Alliance could not file nominations in Jaffna because its list of candidates for the northern electorate has not been finalised, Tamil party sources said.
Full story >>

"First internal study of LTTE" published

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 24 October 2001, 11:00 GMT]
A new book, The Will to Freedom, released this week, provides the first internal study of two decades of the Liberation Tigers' campaign and its leadership, the publishers said in a statement this week. Written by Adele Balasingham, who has lived and worked in India and Sri Lanka for than twenty years with the LTTE, the 400-page book "will be of interest to all those who want to study the inside story of the Tamil resistance movement," Fairmax Publishing Ltd. said.
Full story >>

UNP Muslims threaten to quit over 'SLMC deal'

[TamilNet, Friday, 19 October 2001, 18:18 GMT]
United National Party organisers in the Muslim dominated coastal electorates of the Ampara district Friday decided to contest as an independent group if their leadership in Colombo were to go ahead with its seat sharing arrangement with the Sri Lanka Muslim Congress. “Under the agreement that our party appears to have tacitly reached the only Muslims candidates on the UNP list in the Ampara (Digamadulla) Electorate would be members of the SLMC. We fought against great odds at the last elections to keep the UNP flag flying in the Muslim electorates of the Ampara district. But now our party is ready to jettison us to accommodate the SLMC candidates on its list here,” one of the chief Muslim organisers of the UNP told Tamilnet in Kalmunai Friday.
Full story >>

Tamils propose Prof. Sivathamby too for council

[TamilNet, Saturday, 06 October 2001, 20:00 GMT]
Tamil opposition parties in Sri Lanka's Parliament Saturday night proposed the names of Prof.Karthigesu Sivathamby, Dr.Devanesan Nesaiah, former judge Mr.T.Suntharalingam and former Treasury Secretary Mr.A.Shanmugalingam after a legal hitch precluded the nominee they selected Thursday. The three parties told the Prime Minister to appoint one from among the four names proposed by them to the constitutional council.
Full story >>

Fisherfolk killed in Batticaloa amid SLA ban

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 03 October 2001, 12:06 GMT]
A fisherman was killed Wednesday in shelling by the Sri Lanka army on Aalankulam, 36 kilometres north of Batticaloa. Nagamani Nagalingam, 25, father of one, was fishing in the Aalankulam reservoir around 1.30 p.m. when he was hit by mortar fire from the SLA camp in Navalady, 6 kilometres northwest of Valaichenai. The SLA imposed harsh restrictions on fishing in the district last month. A widow was shot dead by the SLA on Sunday, 30 September, while dredging for fish and prawns by the lagoon coast in Vavunathivu near Batticaloa town.
Full story >>