Peace protest in Vaakarai

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 23 January 2001, 11:12 GMT]
Hundreds of people demonstrated in Vaakarai on Tuesday demanding the Sri Lankan Government reciprocate positively to the Liberation Tigers unilateral cease-fire and to begin negotiations with the movement. The protest was also intended to highlight that Tamil people's aspiration is their right to self-determination, organisers said.
Full story >>

SLAF jets bomb Trinco villages

[TamilNet, Monday, 22 January 2001, 15:35 GMT]
Sri Lanka Air Force jets bombed four villages about 8 km. south of Trincomalee around 5.30 p.m. Monday. Local residents said two Kfir jets attacked the villages of Chenaiyoor, Kaddaiparichchan, Samboor and Soodaikuda. Initial reports indicated extensive damage. But details of casualties and destruction of property are not available sources in Mutur, the town closest to the targets of Monday's air raid, said.
Full story >>

Self-determination call shuts down Batticaloa

[TamilNet, Saturday, 20 January 2001, 15:10 GMT]
The Batticaloa town was deserted Saturday as shops and businesses were closed and most people stayed indoors despite warnings by the Sri Lanka army against the Hartal (general shut down) called by the Independent Students' Union (ISU) to impress that 'the Tamil people's aspiration is the right of self determination and to demand that genocide in Sri Lanka be stopped and a fear free environment in which the Tamils can live peacefully be created'.
Full story >>

Embargo said causing malnutrition, deaths

[TamilNet, Friday, 19 January 2001, 23:03 GMT]
Four patients suffering from severe malnutrition died last month at the Kilinochchi hospital, medical officials in the Vavuniya said Friday. The hospital is unable to treat scores of people in the district bitten by rabid dogs because it has no anti-rabies vaccine in stock, according to them. Severe malnutrition is prevalent in the Vanni, particularly among children, due to the decade long economic embargo imposed on the region by successive Sri Lankan regimes. Vaccines and drugs considered essential in the acutely underdeveloped Vanni backwater are generally not available or chronically short in supply due to draconian restrictions by the Sri Lanka army.
Full story >>

Embargo crippling life in Vanni-Bishop

[TamilNet, Friday, 19 January 2001, 20:37 GMT]
"The people in the Vanni expressed disappointment that the Sri Lankan government talks about peace only when it has to face an election and that once in power it seeks to solve the problem only by military means" said the Bishop of the Mannar diocese of the Catholic Church, Rt. Rev. Rayappu Joseph, on returning from a five day visit to the northern region controlled by the Liberation Tigers. The displaced civilians of the Vanni receive only 25 percent of the relief due to them from the government and most people there are unable to make a living or ply their trade because of the continuing economic embargo on the region, according to the Bishop.
Full story >>

Heavy casualties in Jaffna fighting

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 17 January 2001, 19:02 GMT]
Airstrikes and heavy exchanges or artillery rocked the Jaffna peninsula Wednesday as the Sri Lanka Army (SLA) continued to face determined resistance from the Liberation Tigers, sources close to the LTTE said. Over 100 SLA troops and 70 Tigers have been killed in the past two days, sources close to the LTTE said Thursday evening. Over 400 SLA troops have been wounded, they added.
Full story >>

Massive demonstration in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 17 January 2001, 12:28 GMT]
(News Feature) More than ten thousand people in Jaffna comprising university students, high-school students, residents and representatives and members of civil organisations demonstrated Wednesday, urging the Sri Lankan government to reciprocate the Liberation Tigers unilateral ceasefire and negotiate with the movement. Thousands more people were turned away by Sri Lankan security forces at check points set up along the major roads leading to the university, residents said. Reporters were not permitted into the university either.
Full story >>

Army planning 'all-out' offensive - LTTE

[TamilNet, Friday, 12 January 2001, 07:33 GMT]
Exploiting the Liberation Tigers' unilateral ceasefire, the Sri Lanka Army is inducting fresh troops, armour and artillery into the Jaffna offensive in preparation for an "all-out" offensive in the Kilali-Nagerkoil, the LTTE said Friday. In an interview with the London-based Tamil Guardian, the LTTE's chief negotiator warned that the Army's "strategy will result in a major escalation of the war."
Full story >>

Will not permit student demo- Jaffna commander

[TamilNet, Thursday, 11 January 2001, 20:56 GMT]
The Sri Lanka army's objective is not recapturing Elephant Pass but ensuring the protection of Jaffna and its people said Major. General Anton Wijendra, the Security Forces Commander for the northern peninsula, addressing a press conference for foreign and local journalists flown in Wednesday by the military at his headquarters in Palali. He charged that students of the Jaffna University are engaging in political agitation with the backing of the Liberation Tigers and vowed to stop demonstration the undergraduates are planning to hold on 17 January.
Full story >>

Colombo categorically rejects Tiger cease-fire

[TamilNet, Friday, 05 January 2001, 15:29 GMT]
The Sri Lankan government will not in anyway respond to the cease-fire unilaterally declared by the Liberation Tigers last month said Sri Lanka's Minister for Media, Anura Priyadarshana Yapa, addressing a press conference in Colombo Friday to announce this week's cabinet decisions.
Full story >>

No compensation for Palaly expansion

[TamilNet, Thursday, 28 December 2000, 14:52 GMT]
Hundreds of families in Valikamam-north sector who had to vacate their houses when the Sri Lanka Army expanded its Palaly base in the Jaffna peninsula have not received compensations from the government, according to the Consortium of Non Governmental Organisations (NGOs) in the northern town.
Full story >>

LTTE to unilaterally observe "goodwill" ceasefire

[TamilNet, Monday, 25 December 2000, 13:35 GMT]
The Liberation Tigers Monday expressed "great dismay" the Sri Lankan government had rejected its offer of a month-long ceasefire over the festive season, but said they would continue to unilaterally observe a truce and urged the government to reconsider its position. "The LTTE will not embark on offensive armed operations during the festive season ending on the 24th January 2001 but it reserves the right to armed defence. We will only engage in defensive war if and when Sri Lanka armed forces launch offensive military operations against our positions," the Tigers said in a statement from their London offices.
Full story >>

Sri Lanka rejects LTTE's "goodwill" ceasefire

[TamilNet, Saturday, 23 December 2000, 20:13 GMT]
The Sri Lankan government Saturday rejected the Liberation Tigers offer Thursday of a month-long "goodwill" cease-fire, asserting that military operations by the armed forces will continue. A statement issued by the Presidential Secretariat also said that "further gestures of goodwill are unnecessary [before negotiations]," rejecting the LTTE's call to de- escalate the conflict for negotiations to take place in conditions of normalcy.
Full story >>

Tigers declare "goodwill" month-long ceasefire

[TamilNet, Thursday, 21 December 2000, 11:47 GMT]
The Liberation Tigers declared Thursday a month-long unilateral ceasefire "as a goodwill measure to facilitate the peace process." A press release from the organisation's London offices quoted a statement released by its headquarters in the Vanni said it would cease hostile military actions against the Sri Lankan armed forces from midnight 24 December.
Full story >>

Sinhala nationalists protest against talks

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 20 December 2000, 14:34 GMT]
The militant Sinhala Buddhist nationalist group, the National Movement Against Terrorism (NMAT), urged the Sri Lanka army to continue the war until the Liberation Tigers are defeated when they met the SLA commander Lt.Gen. Lionel Balagalle Wednesday and gave him a memorandum against peace talks to end the ethnic conflict in the island. The NMAT held a protest in downtown Colombo against peace talks Wednesday afternoon. Protesters burnt an effigy of LTTE leader Velupillai Pirapaharan and poked fun at two persons dressed up as Norwegian peace emissary Eric Soleheim and British Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Peter Hain.
Full story >>

'Negotiations cannot be held under conditions of war' - LTTE

[TamilNet, Saturday, 16 December 2000, 14:19 GMT]
The Liberation Tigers Saturday called on the international community to use its good offices “to persuade the Sri Lankan government to abandon its hardline militarist approach and to seek a negotiated political settlement in a climate of peace and goodwill”. A press release from the organisation’s London offices quoted a statement it released Saturday in the Vanni expressing the LTTE’s “deep disappointment” over the “categorical rejection” by Sri Lanka of its call for a process of de-escalation of the armed conflict prior to peace talks. The LTTE also welcomed the “positive” proposals for “mutually reciprocated confidence building goodwill measures” suggested by the Government of Norway to be undertaken on both sides.
Full story >>

US ambassador visits Vavuniya

[TamilNet, Friday, 15 December 2000, 16:32 GMT]
The US ambassador for Sri Lanka, Ashley Wills, held discussions Friday with the Government Agent (GA) for Vavuniya about the situation in the border town and about the conditions obtaining in the Vanni. Officials at the Vavuniya Kachcheri said that the US ambassador had keenly ascertained the ground realities in the region, particularly regarding food and medical supplies to the Vanni during his hour long meeting with the GA, K.Ganesh.
Full story >>

Peace efforts at impasse - paper

[TamilNet, Friday, 15 December 2000, 12:03 GMT]
(News Feature) The Sri Lankan government's refusal to lift its economic embargo on Tamil areas not held by its military and Colombo's imposition of fresh conditions for negotiations threaten to stall Norwegian efforts to bring about a peaceful resolution of the island's protracted conflict, the London-based Tamil Guardian said this week. "The Sri Lankan government is well aware that adopting this position effectively creates an impasse," the paper said in the editorial column of its latest issue, which hit news stands Friday.
Full story >>

Father of three shot dead

[TamilNet, Monday, 11 December 2000, 22:03 GMT]
A father of three children Sivanayagam Ilango,29 of Thiruperunthurai in the Batticaloa district was shot dead and two others were injured Sunday night when they were returning home after making a complaint at the nearby Air force checkpoint about a robbery, said sources.
Full story >>

Bindunuwewa camp to be relocated to Vavuniya

[TamilNet, Monday, 11 December 2000, 01:43 GMT]
Prison authorities in Sri Lanka are planning to establish a new rehabilitation camp in Vavuniya to replace the camp at Bindunuwewa in Bandarawela which ceased to function following the brutal murder on the 25th October of this year of more than 24 Tamil prisoners housed in the camp, said sources.
Full story >>