'Tigers should fight on until liberation'- TULF MP

[TamilNet, Friday, 27 July 2001, 19:10 GMT]
"The Liberation Tigers are fighting for the freedom of the Tamil people. They should continue their armed struggle until the Tamil people are liberated," said Mr. Mavai Senathirajah, Tamil United Liberation Front MP for Jaffna, addressing a meeting by the Tamil Eelam Liberation Organisation (TELO) in Vavuniya Friday to commemorate its leaders who were massacred in the Welikada jail in Colombo in July 1983.
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Vanni schools make do with fewer teachers

[TamilNet, Friday, 27 July 2001, 15:03 GMT]
There are only 2079 teachers to teach 86177 school children in the Vanni, according to officials of the Northeast Provincial Ministry of Education. “The shortage is more than 52 percent. There should be at least 4020 teachers for this number of children as stipulated by the Ministry of Education. The actual shortage is much higher when we take into account the number that is at Teachers’ Training Colleges,” an official said. “This puts tremendous pressure on children and teachers alike as the education system in the Vanni is struggling hard to survive under the economic embargo,” he added.
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Army kills man crossing sentry post

[TamilNet, Friday, 20 July 2001, 20:05 GMT]
A 35 year old man was shot and killed by Sri Lanka Army soldiers manning a sentry post at Siththaandy, 22 km. north of Batticaloa, around 5 p.m. Friday, local residents said.
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APC damaged in claymore blast

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 18 July 2001, 12:27 GMT]
A Special Task Force (STF) elite soldier was seriously wounded when an Armoured Personnel Carrier (APC) was hit by a claymore mine blast at Thetraathivu, about 20 km. south of Batticaloa. The attack took place around 10 a.m. Wednesday, police sources said.
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Journalists demand action against PSD

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 17 July 2001, 15:50 GMT]
Journalists and opposition parliamentarians Tuesday demonstrated in front of the Fort Railway station in downtown Colombo, urging the Government to act against "intimidation" from the Presidential Security Division (PSD).
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"Colombo's embargo targets schoolchildren"- official

[TamilNet, Saturday, 14 July 2001, 19:09 GMT]
More than a thousand students in a Vanni school were found to be suffering from malnutrition, an official in the department of education in the northern region said Saturday. He said many students in the Vallipunam high school were also diagnosed for acute malnutrition.
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Tamil learning in NE said wanting

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 10 July 2001, 13:33 GMT]
"About ten percent of Tamil medium students failed in their mother tongue at the 1998 G.C.E. ordinary level examination. This trend still prevails among students in northeast. To arrest this trend, teachers and principals should take firm steps to develop the teaching of the mother tongue," said Mr. Mr. K. Parameswaran, Secretary, Northeast Provincial Ministry of Education while speaking at Tamil day celebrations held Monday at Trincomalee St. Mary's Girls College.
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Deep penetration group ambush wounds 4 civilians

[TamilNet, Sunday, 08 July 2001, 08:52 GMT]
Four civilians were wounded when the tractor in which they were travelling was hit by claymore mine triggered by a Sri Lanka Army deep penetration team in the Vaakarai region, about 75 km. north of Batticaloa local residents said. The incident occurred at Kathiraveli-Kattumurivu Kulam road, in the LTTE held area, around 3 p.m. Saturday.
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MOD clearance stipulated for Vanni travel

[TamilNet, Saturday, 07 July 2001, 15:54 GMT]
The Sri Lankan government introduced new regulations this week stipulating that civilians should obtain permission from the Ministry of Defence to travel to the Vanni. The regulation, which came into effect from 5 July, was criticized by Parliamentarians for the Vanni Saturday.
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Rape protest shuts down North and East

[TamilNet, Friday, 06 July 2001, 09:47 GMT]
Shops, schools, offices, courts and banks were closed and streets were mostly deserted in Sri Lanka's northern province, in the Tamil, Muslim majority areas of the eastern province and in the Tamil towns of the central province Friday in response to a call for a general shut down by the alliance of eleven Tamil parties and by Tamil trade unions to protest against the rape of Tamil women by Sri Lankan security forces. The Tamil parties held a protest demonstration in downtown Colombo Friday.
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Tamil parties criticize Colombo for re-imposing ban

[TamilNet, Friday, 06 July 2001, 05:45 GMT]
Tamil parties Thursday criticized the Sri Lankan government for re-imposing the ban on the Liberation Tigers under the Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA). The legislation proscribing the Liberation Tigers lapsed Wednesday with the Emergency Regulations.
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Tamil teachers join protest against rape

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 03 July 2001, 18:57 GMT]
The Ceylon Tamil Teachers Union (CTTU) has appealed to its members and Tamil school children throughout the island to boycott schools on Friday 6 July to protest against the rape of a Tamil woman by policemen at a check post in Maradana, in capital Colombo on 24 June. A coalition of ten Tamil political parties and trade unions are planning to hold a protest rally in Colombo, and a general strike in the Northeast and the hill towns of the island. The twenty thousand member strong CTTU will be one of the trade unions joining the protest.
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Air strikes will "irreparably damage" peace process -LTTE

[TamilNet, Monday, 02 July 2001, 08:29 GMT]
The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in an official statement issued from its headquarters in Vanni, northern Sri Lanka today, warned the Government of Sri Lanka that peace initiatives would be irreparably damaged if it continued with its intense aerial and artillery bombardment against the LTTE positions in Jaffna. Describing the air strikes as 'provocative aggression and calculated escalation', the LTTE accused the Kumaratunga regime of seeking desperate measures to mobilise the support of Sinhala nationalist forces with the purpose of overcoming the crisis brought by the no-confidence motion.
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Driver, schoolboy missing in Mannar

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 26 June 2001, 02:04 GMT]
The Mannar Citizens’ Committee Monday received four complaints about two disappearances and two arrests. Arumugam Thevarajah, 40, a driver who went to the Sri Lanka Army's pass office in Mannar town on 18 June to obtain a temporary resident permit to stay in the suburb of Panankattikottu, did not return home and is missing since then, according to a complaint lodged by his sister Kanapathipillai Thevanayagi. A fifteen-year-old student in Mannar has also been reported missing since 13 June. Relatives who fear that he might have been arrested and detained have sought the Citizens’ Committee’s assistance to trace him.
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Tigers deny shutting down civilian crossing

[TamilNet, Monday, 25 June 2001, 11:50 GMT]
The Voice of Tigers radio said in its morning news broadcast Monday that the Liberation Tigers denied a Sri Lanka army report that they had closed the main crossing point to the Vanni. No lorries from the Vanni came to the crossing point for civilians and international humanitarian agencies at Piramanaalankulam, 28 kilometres west of Vavuniya, on Saturday. The SLA Saturday issued a statement that claimed the lorries had not come because the LTTE had closed the crossing. “We are not aware of any disruption in the normal operation of the Piramanaalankulam checkpoint. The question of lorries coming from or going to the Vanni is a matter that comes totally under the purview of the Government Agent, not us”, the press officer of the ICRC, Mr. Harasha Gunawardene, told Tamilnet Monday, referring to the SLA statement which quoted the ICRC as saying no lorries had come from the Vanni on Saturday.
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Red Cross driver arrested

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 19 June 2001, 10:57 GMT]
Sri Lanka Army soldiers arrested a driver of the Sri Lanka Red Cross, Vavuniya branch, for transporting banned items to the Vanni region controlled by the Liberation Tigers, security sources in the northern town said Tuesday.
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Batticaloa gets 'Writing on the wall'

[TamilNet, Sunday, 17 June 2001, 16:19 GMT]
Sri Lanka army soldiers nonchalantly pass by the large writings on the wall in Vathaarumoolai, 19 kilometres north of Batticaloa. The attitude surprises visitors and locals alike because these are larger than life graffiti of the Liberation Tigers which began appearing since early last month in many parts of the Batticaloa district's coastal region which is controlled by the Sri Lankan security forces. Some have been sprayed very close to army camps on Batticaloa coastal highway.
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SLA detains Eastern University undergrad

[TamilNet, Saturday, 16 June 2001, 17:30 GMT]
An undergraduate of the Eastern University was arrested and detained by the Sri Lanka army for questioning Friday in Vavuniya. A group of ten undergraduates of the Eastern University returning from the Vanni were taken for questioning at the SLA entry point in Piramanaalankulam Friday morning. Nine undergraduates were released from the SLA Goods Shed camp after interrogation. But Mr. Selvarasa Suntharalingam was detained for further investigations at the 21-1 Brigade of the SLA in Vavuniya, Human Rights Commission sources in Vavuniya said.
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Claymore kills LTTE's eastern political leader

[TamilNet, Friday, 15 June 2001, 21:21 GMT]
The leader of the political wing of the Liberation Tigers for the Batticaloa and Ampara district was killed in a claymore mine blast Thursday around 11.30 a.m. at Vaathakkalmadu in Nallathanni Odai, about 36 kilometres south west of Batticaloa, Sri Lanka army sources in the eastern town said. They claimed that the Batticaloa-Ampara district's political wing leader, Nizaam, was killed when the claymore blast hit the motorbike on which he was riding with a colleague Thursday morning.
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Damage control as peace process hits the rocks

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 12 June 2001, 05:15 GMT]
(News Feature) The bi-lateral decision by Norway and Sri Lanka last Thursday, at the latter's insistence, to reduce the prominence of Oslo's peace envoy, Erik Solheim, has delivered an unexpected and severe blow to the Liberation TigersÇ confidence in the Norwegian initiative, political analysts said Monday. Sri Lanka's state-media Monday strove to give the impression that the process was still on track, but the LTTE's strongly worded statement Sunday and sentiments being expressed by Tamil politicians and media emphasised the depth of the crisis, they said.
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