Over ten thousand children sans birth certificates

[TamilNet, Friday, 29 June 2001, 18:19 GMT]
"Over ten thousand children, the majority of them living in areas held by the Liberation Tigers in the Trincomalee district, do not have birth certificates", said Mr.S.M.K.B Nandaratna, Senior Programme Officer of the Save the Children Fund speaking at a conference held Friday at Trincomalee District Secretariat. "The badly affected children live in the two most remote villages in the Mutur area, Cheenanveli and Uppooral. They find it very difficult to continue their studies and to partake in sports meets without their birth certificates," he said.
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No faith motion on 16 July ñ Acting President

[TamilNet, Thursday, 28 June 2001, 14:02 GMT]
Speaking at ceremony to honour a Buddhist monk in Piliyandala, an outer suburb of Colombo, this afternoon Sri Lanka's acting President Ratnasiri Wickremanayaka said that the no confidence motion against the government by the opposition would be taken up for debate in the Parliament on 16, 17 and18 of July.
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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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Norway's peace initiative mired in blood

[TamilNet, Saturday, 28 April 2001, 03:38 GMT]
(NEWS FEATURE) The Norwegian peace initiative suffered several body blows this week as amid a bloody Sri Lanka Army offensive in the Jaffna peninsula, the government ruled out the possibility of a ceasefire, saying it was Ïirrelevant" to the Norwegian facilitated peace process, and insisted the Liberation Tigers would remain proscribed until they proved they were "sincere and honest" about negotiations, thereby rejecting two issues the LTTE insists are pre-requisites for succesful negotiations to be held.
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SLA casualties in Jaffna fighting rise

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 25 April 2001, 14:37 GMT]
More than 400 Sri Lanka army soldiers were wounded in less than eight hours of fighting with the Liberation Tigers in Eluthumadduval and Kilali in Jaffna, military sources in the north said. Officials at government hospitals in Anuradhapura and Colombo said preparations are underway to receive more later this evening. The SLA spokesman, however, claimed that only 78 soldiers were wounded and 30 were killed. Op. Agni Khela I (Fire Flame), launched in the early hours of Wednesday morning, was the first phase of an ambitious plan by the SLA to retake JaffnaÌs southern sector and Elephant Pass, the strategic gateway to the peninsula which Tigers overran in April 2000.
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Colombo set on war path say Tamil parties

[TamilNet, Sunday, 22 April 2001, 15:52 GMT]
Tamil party leaders Sunday strongly condemned statements made by Sri Lanka’s Prime Minister Ratnasiri Wickremanayaka, that the war against the Liberation Tigers has begun and that his government will not declare a ceasefire again. “ The Prime minister’s pronouncement on Friday makes it amply clear that the Sri Lankan government is not interested in peace negotiations at all. The PM is a confidante of the President. His renewed belligerence shows that the government is on the war path again”, charged a spokesman for the alliance of ten Tamil parties.
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STF assaults widow for reporting sexual harassment

[TamilNet, Sunday, 22 April 2001, 11:17 GMT]
A widow who reported sexual harassment a group Special Task Force (STF) commandos was severely assaulted by them and was admitted to the Batticaloa hospital Sunday morning. The woman, Mahendran Nageswary, 37, Saturday complained to an officer at the STF’s main camp at Karaithivu, 46 kilometres south of Batticaloa, that a group of STF commandos from Kaluwanchikudy were harassing her. The woman was beaten up by the STF personnel who had been intimidating when she returned home Saturday evening. The commandos beat up woman’s son too when he had tried to help his mother who had fallen on the ground unconscious, hospital sources said.
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Sri Lanka Navy bombards Trinco village

[TamilNet, Sunday, 15 April 2001, 18:52 GMT]
The Sri Lanka Navy bombarded Soodaikkudah, a coastal hamlet south of Trincomalee, Saturday afternoon on Tamil New Year, residents said. Four boats and a house were damaged when the Sri Lanka Navy gunboats shelled the village from 3.30 p.m. Saturday, according to them. People fled the village in November last year following persistent attacks by the SLN. They were sheltered as refugees in a school in Sampoor, a large village west of Soodaikudah until they resettled in February on an assurance the ICRC had obtained from the Navy.
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Police seek further imprisonment of Sivamani, Wijikala

[TamilNet, Monday, 09 April 2001, 13:33 GMT]
The Special Investigation Unit (SIU) of the Mannar Police Monday moved in the Mannar district court that Sivamani Weerakon and Nanthakumar Wijikala, the young women who were allegedly raped and brutally tortured in Police custody, be further remanded for fourteen days on grounds that they had confessed to offences under draconian Prevention of Terrorism Act and that they are suicide bombers sent by the LTTE to assassinate important persons. The SIU also stated that it was necessary to keep the women in custody because investigations about them are not yet over. Objecting to the SIU's application, Mr. K.S Ratnavale, the attorney who appeared for the accused, told the court, "this a funny application coming from the prosecution because the B report filed in court by the SIU moving for further remand has been signed by OIC Suraweera who has been accused of committing sexual offences against the two women. He should be the one behind bars".
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Ex-SLA commander pays missing youthís parent

[TamilNet, Friday, 06 April 2001, 15:53 GMT]
Lt. Gen. Cecil Waidyaratne, a former commander of the Sri Lanka army Thursday paid 100,000 rupees as directed by Sri Lankaís court of Appeal to the father of a Tamil youth who went missing after he was arrested by the army in the Ampara district in June 1990. The decision of the court of appeal in the Habeas Corpus application on Kandaiah Yoganayagam, 31, is the first instance in which the Sri Lanka armyís high command has been held responsible by the Court of Appeal for the disappearance of a Tamil youth in the Ampara district. Human rights activists and Peace Committees in the district say that more than six thousand Tamil civilians were massacred or reported missing after being arrested by the Sri Lanka army and the Special Task Force commandos of the Sri Lanka Police in the Tamil villages and hinterland of Ampara between 1990 and 1993.
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Girl describes bizarre Police torture in SC petition

[TamilNet, Saturday, 31 March 2001, 10:01 GMT]
Sri Lanka’s Supreme Court this week granted leave to proceed with the fundamental rights petition of a Tamil girl from Kayts in Jaffna who says Policemen tortured her in detention by repeatedly inserting a plantain flower soaked in chilli powder into her vagina. The girl who is currently being held in the Negombo remand prison states in her petition to the Supreme Court that she was hung on a pole inserted between her thighs and arms which had been tied together below the knee and that he body was made to swing in that position; that she was hung from the roof and battered with a cudgel; that Policemen tortured her by pricking under her finger and toe nails with paper pins until she bled; that she was mercilessly assaulted with poles and wires and trampled with boots. The girl also states in her petition that although she had appealed to the Human Rights Commission and the Presidential Committee on Unlawful Arrests and Harassment, they had not taken any action regarding her predicament. The case was fixed for hearing on 7 June 2001.
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Southern courts prove safe ground in rights cases

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 27 March 2001, 20:53 GMT]
"Members of armed forces who have been cited in Habeas Corpus applications or who have been indicted in criminal cases filed in the eastern courts adopt the ploy of seeking the transfer of cases for them to Colombo so as to dissuade the affected parties from actively pursuing the establishment of their rights" said a human rights activist in Colombo who did not want to be identified.
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Chandrika’s mistrust of media manifest in censorship- CPJ

[TamilNet, Monday, 19 March 2001, 08:26 GMT]
The Committee for the Protection of Journalists, the New York based media watchdog, said Sri Lankan President Chandrika Kumaratunga's censorship policy “is just one manifestation of her basic mistrust for the media” and that she had introduced emergency regulations that included “some of the harshest censorship measures ever imposed in the country” in a statement ‘Attacks on journalists 2000’ issued Monday. CPJ said that in Sri Lanka, “Violent attacks against journalists were typically committed with impunity”. “Even when the government has paid nominal attention to pursuing justice, it has come up short”, notes the statement.
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Mutur magistrate sets a precedent

[TamilNet, Saturday, 17 March 2001, 10:23 GMT]
The Mutur Magistrate this week issued certificates that the deaths of seven Tamil farmers in the Poomarathadihchenai massacre in Trincomalee district were due to gunshot and cut injuries. Representatives of the International Committee of Red Cross on Thursday went to Poonagar and handed over the death certificates to the families of the dead, enabling them to claim compensation and relief. Magisterial inquests are not held for Tamils who are killed thus in border villages. As a consequence, hundreds of Tamil families in border villages that have lost their sole breadwinners are denied poverty relief as they cannot produce death certificates for the diseased required by the authorities to accept and process their applications.
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CWC calls off protest, settles for Rs.280

[TamilNet, Thursday, 15 March 2001, 13:04 GMT]
The Ceylon Workers Congress called off its Satyagraha (protest) campaign Thursday, settling for a nine-rupee raise in the daily wage for tea workers. Instead of granting the 400-rupee monthly cost of living allowance demanded by the protesting work force and the CWC, the tea companies agreed to a 9 rupee (11 US cents) raise and also to pay a 5-rupee per day conditional work incentive (the current daily wage is 107 rupees-1.24 USD).
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Deserter obduracy gets amnesty extension

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 14 March 2001, 18:48 GMT]
The Sri Lanka army extended until midnight Thursday 15 March a general amnesty for thousands of its deserters who are still at large. An amnesty was announced in January this year and another from 6 March to Wednesday 14 midnight. Frequent amnesties, harsh measures against businesses employing deserters, search operations by Police and exhortations and pleas by leading Buddhist priests have brought few deserters back to the ranks. Military analysts say that 15000 to 20000 deserters are at large at any given time. According to a report in the Colombo press, at least 7000 soldiers deserted their units with weapons. Police point the finger at these for the growing crime rate and the rise of well-armed underworld gangs in many parts of the island, mainly in the capital Colombo.
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War victims organize in Trincomalee

[TamilNet, Sunday, 11 March 2001, 10:34 GMT]
A Sinhala fisherman who lost a limb when the Sri Lanka Navy attacked his boat in the seas off Trincomalee was elected President of an association of persons disabled due to the war that was formed in the eastern port town this week. War and torture victims in the north and east get little assistance from the Sri Lankan government, due to red tape and sheer discrimination.
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Mayor condemns pornography distribution in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Thursday, 01 March 2001, 12:00 GMT]
The Jaffna Municipal Mayor claims that some powerful elements, with vested interests, are trying to pollute the minds of younger generation in the peninsula by flooding the area with obscene literature and films. Mr.N.Raviraj made this warning when S.Mangalanesan, a Councillor, brought to the notice of the council meeting held Tuesday that some security personnel were seen distributing handbills and films of an obscene nature to youths.
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Media helps us stay on track- Col. Anthonis

[TamilNet, Monday, 26 February 2001, 23:36 GMT]
The condition of education in the north and east was discussed by the Sri Lanka army at its headquarters in Colombo said Colonel V.L Rohan Anthonis, the commander of the 23-3 brigade in Batticaloa, addressing a meeting with local journalists and school principals Monday. He emphasised that students should not take part in anti-government activities. "We want to make sure we are on the correct track" officer said, speaking about the importance of monitoring the media. Col. Anthonis, a former cricketer from St. Thomas' College, the island's most prestigious private school for boys, claimed that he and his staff look up the press daily to check whether army has wronged anyone in Batticaloa.
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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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