SLA bid to relocate Trinco IDPs opposed

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 06 June 2001, 06:07 GMT]
Sri Lankan security forces told government officials in Trincomalee to transfer over 1500 internally displaced Tamil persons from Alles Garden refugee camp to Kuchchaveli, 38 kilometres north of Trincomalee town. "The security forces in Trincomalee have taken this step to ensure the security of army and navy camps in the area", a government official said.
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Mannar rape and torture suspects score one

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 05 June 2001, 21:11 GMT]
The Mannar judge M.H.M Ajmeer instructed the Superintendent of the Anuradhapura prison that the 14 Police and Sri Lanka Navy personnel accused in the rape and torture of two women in Mannar on 19 March need not be produced in court Wednesday following an interim order by the Court of Appeal, legal sources said Tuesday.
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ICRC transfers bodies of LTTE killed by STF

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 05 June 2001, 11:35 GMT]
The bodies of 11 Liberation Tigers who were killed Monday in an attack by Special Task Force commandos in Kanjikudichcha Aaru, 84 kilometres south of Batticaloa, were handed over to the ICRC Tuesday Mr.Harasha Gunawardene, the press officer of the ICRC in Colombo told Tamilnet. All the bodies were transferred to the LTTE today, he said. He added that the body of a Tiger trooper was handed over to the LTTE Monday.
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Six troopers killed in LTTE attack

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 05 June 2001, 06:15 GMT]
Six soldiers were killed and ten were wounded when the Liberation Tigers attacked a Sri Lanka army patrol around 8 a.m. Tuesday at Kaavathamunai, 32 kilometres north of Batticaloa. The soldiers were from the 23-2 brigade in the Valaichenai Paper Mills. A Muslim civilian was killed and 15 were wounded in the village of Kaavathamunai in retaliatory shelling from the 23-2 brigade camp. Kaavathamunai is a Muslim village near Valaichenai.
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LTTE cautions against war zone resettlement

[TamilNet, Friday, 01 June 2001, 18:10 GMT]
The Liberation Tigers called on the people of the Thenmaradchi division in Jaffna not to resettle in their villages as the area is still a war zone. The Tigers, in a leaflet released in Jaffna Friday, said "the enemy and his lackeys are trying use our people as human shields. We do not want our people to suffer again from the calamities of war and destruction. Therefore we request them not to resettle in Thenmaradchi until we issue an official announcement."
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'Onward with the war' say Sinhala nationalists

[TamilNet, Saturday, 26 May 2001, 16:45 GMT]
"The need of the hour is not peace negotiations but to prosecute the war correctly. We should not think about how to negotiate peace but only about conducting the war victoriously. Sri Lanka is the homeland of the Sinhala people. No part of it can be the homeland of a minority. Autonomy and self-determination should not be granted or recognised", resolved a conference of Buddhist monks, leading Sinhala Buddhist businessmen, intellectuals and retired senior officers of the Sri Lankan security forces in Colombo Saturday. The conference was organised, according to a spokesman, to "consider the implications of the forthcoming peace talks and the constitutional proposals on the country". Meanwhile, Colombo stated categorically Saturday that it will not lift the proscription of the Liberation Tigers as a pre-requisite for starting talks.
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Protest in Jaffna against SLA ban on fishing

[TamilNet, Saturday, 26 May 2001, 14:23 GMT]
More than hundred and fifty fishermen in Valvettithurai in Jaffna sat in a protest fast from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday demanding that the Sri Lanka army should lift the ban on fishing in the seas off the peninsula's Vadamaradchi division. A spokesman for the Valvettithurai fishermen told Tamilnet that the protest fast will continue until the ban is lifted and some of their reasonable requests are met. The SLA banned fishing in the seas off the coast from Sakkoattai to Thondamanar on 18 May.
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SLN brings 'spotters' in ambulance, arrests seven

[TamilNet, Saturday, 19 May 2001, 11:50 GMT]
The Sri Lanka Navy arrested seven civilians from Pesalai, 16 kilometres west of Mannar town, during a search operation in the residential sector and the two refugee camps of the village Saturday morning. The Navy brought two hooded ëspottersí in an ambulance after it cordoned off the two refugee camps and division 5, 6 and 7 from 5 a.m. in the morning. The civilians who were pointed out by the two 'spotters' were arrested and taken away by the SLN. The search comes in the wake of claymore blast Friday in Thoattaveli, near Pesalai, in which two Special Task Force commandos were wounded.
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Douglas berates Jaffna press

[TamilNet, Thursday, 17 May 2001, 13:05 GMT]
“I do not trust the press in Jaffna”, said Mr. Douglas Devananda, MP, Minister for Development Rehabilitation and Reconstruction of the North and Tamil Affairs (North and East), addressing a press conference Thursday afternoon at his office on Stanley Road in the northern town. The road, in the busy heart of Jaffna town, was blocked off to the public from Thursday morning 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. in the afternoon by Sri Lanka army soldiers, Policemen and armed cadres of the Eelam People’s Democratic Party (EPDP). The press briefing was called after the conclusion of the Jaffna electorate development meeting, which was boycotted by five Jaffna MPs who are protesting that it is not safe for them to be present in Mr. Devananda’s office cum camp on Stanley Road.
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Kadirgamar's move said linked to no confidence motion

[TamilNet, Friday, 11 May 2001, 19:34 GMT]
"The Sri Lankan government announced that it had reached an agreement with the Liberation Tigers not because of a genuine commitment to peace but to deftly pre-empt the support of minority parties for the opposition's impending no confidence motion against the government", a spokesperson for the ten party Tamil alliance told TamilNet in Colombo Friday evening. "The government is alarmed now that it might lose the support of at least a section of its main coalition partner, the Sri Lanka Muslim Congress over the Mawanella pogrom. This is has created a serious crisis for the People's Alliance. Why should the Sri Lankan government, which consistently rejected the LTTE's ceasefire and refused to even partially lift the embargo on the Vanni despite facing greater military defeats than Agni Khiela I last year, jump the gun at this juncture to falsely declare that it had reached an understanding with the Tigers to begin peace talks?" the Tamil politician in Colombo asked.
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Fear of reprisal silences Trinco torture victims

[TamilNet, Friday, 11 May 2001, 18:56 GMT]
"Thirty to forty torture victims in Trincomalee district seek medical and psychological treatment every month. There are over five hundred torture victims in the Trincomalee district who do not get proper physical and psychological treatment", said Dr.E.Gnanakunalan, Deputy Director of Health Services in the Northeast Provincial Ministry of Health, addressing a seminar on torture victims held Friday morning at the New Silver Star Hotel in the eastern port town.
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Balasingham denies agreement reached, expresses surprise

[TamilNet, Thursday, 10 May 2001, 18:38 GMT]
The Liberation Tigers Thursday expressed surprise and concern at the Sri Lankan government's statement suggesting that agreement had been reached between the two sides on several matters. When contacted about the statement issued by Sri Lankan Foreign Minister Lakshman Kadirgamar Thursday, Mr. Anton Balasingham, the LTTE's chief negotiator, emphatically denied that agreement had been reached on any matters and expressed surprise at Sri Lanka's statement, describing it as "recklessly premature" and "factually incorrect"
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SLMC slates government for Mawanella pogrom

[TamilNet, Thursday, 10 May 2001, 17:26 GMT]
Mr. Rauff Hakeem, the co-leader of the Sri Lanka Muslim Congress (SLMC), the ruling People's Alliance's main coalition partner, Thursday slammed the government for not taking prompt action to stop the mass violence by Sinhala mobs against the Muslims of Mawanella. He accused the government of dragging its feet in taking action against the perpetrators of the anti-Muslim violence. He charged that transferring Policemen who were in Mawanella during the pogrom against the Muslims of the town was merely a temporary cosmetic measure.
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Colombo bans public processions

[TamilNet, Thursday, 10 May 2001, 07:52 GMT]
The Sri Lankan government banned all public processions for a week under the Emergency Regulations Thursday. An official statement said that the ban commenced midnight of 9 May. The ban was promulgated in the Emergency Regulation No. 1 of 2001 (public precessions), according to the statement.
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Bilateral cease-fire mooted

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 09 May 2001, 17:12 GMT]
The Norwegian peace envoy, Mr.Erik Solheim Wednesday met the Liberation Tigers' chief negotiator, and political advisor Mr.Anton Balasingham in London, for lengthy discussions. They discussed a feasibility of working out a bilateral cessation of hostility between the Sri Lankan government and the LTTE to facilitate the peace process.
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Fire-fight amid Vesak gloom in Batticaloa

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 09 May 2001, 12:12 GMT]
A Sri Lanka army soldier was killed and one was wounded in a fire-fight with the Liberation Tigers at Kommathurai, 18 kilometres north of Batticaloa town, Tuesday night around 8 p.m. Fighting broke out when SLA troops lying in ambush by a crossing point between the district's large hinterland controlled by the Liberation Tigers and the coast dominated by the army opened fire upon detecting the movement of armed persons.
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Salli-sustaining the will to survive against odds

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 08 May 2001, 15:06 GMT]
Salli is an old coastal village on the northern side of the Trincomalee Bay. Like hundreds of other Tamil villages in Sri Lanka's north and east, Salli is a shadow of its former self. Last week the Sri Lanka Navy, which has ringed the village with four camps, ordered civilians here to stay indoors after 6 p.m.
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Tamil journalists slam draconian laws

[TamilNet, Sunday, 06 May 2001, 15:00 GMT]
"The Emergency Regulations and the Prevention of Terrorism Act are laws designed specifically to oppress the Tamil people", said Mr. P. Manickavasagam, the President of the Tamil Media Alliance, addressing a meeting in Batticaloa organised Sunday by the East Lanka Journalist Association to mark the World Press Freedom Day. "The Amnesty International has said in its report that the Eelam People's Democratic Party is suspected in the murder of Jaffna journalist Maylvaganam Nimalarajan.
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Talaimannar refuses to yield

[TamilNet, Saturday, 05 May 2001, 20:20 GMT]
(News Feature) Two decades ago Talaimannar was a prosperous town. The only ferry service between India and Sri Lanka operated from here, carrying thousands of passengers from Talaimannar pier to Rameswaram in South India. One could buy a railway ticket to India from any part of the island and take the train to board the ferry at Talaimannar for the short journey across the Palk Strait. Today less than hundred and fifty families live in the Talaimannar pier.
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