Nuwara Eliya has no Tamil administrative officers- UPF

[TamilNet, Friday, 10 March 2006, 03:09 GMT]
Nuwara Eliya, a district with 80% percent Tamil population, and a district which has the largest concentration of Tamils outside NorthEast, does not have a single Tamil Administrative Officer, said Leader of Upcountry Peoples Front (UPF), Periyasamy Chandrasekaran, in an urgent letter sent to Sri Lanka President, Mahinda Rajapakse, UPF's media co-ordinator said Thursday.
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Kanniya resettled families celebrate Women's Day

[TamilNet, Friday, 10 March 2006, 00:29 GMT]
Traditional Tamil village of Kanniya in Trincomalee town celebrated the International Women's Day Thursday evening with the support of the Danish Refugee Council (DRC), sources in Trincomalee said. Several hundred families from Peeliaydi, Managaiootu and Kanniya, resettled since the signing of the Ceasefire Agreement in the year 2002, participated in the celebrations.
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Positive contribution by International players, key to Peace in Sri Lanka - Senewiratne

[TamilNet, Thursday, 09 March 2006, 02:45 GMT]
"Marginalising and excluding the Liberation Tigers, a key player to the peace process in the island, will mean the end of the failed state Sri Lanka," a Sinhala expatriate physician supportive of Tamils right to self-determination told a gathering of EU officials at a symposium organised in the European Parliament in Brussels on Tuesday. "The EU has essentially opted out of making a meaningful contribution to rescue Sri Lanka," he noted. Tamil, Sinhala and European panelists presented their views in the symposium titled "The EU Contribution to the Peace Process in Sri Lanka."
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Sri Lankan State lacks consent of Tamil people - TNA MP

[TamilNet, Thursday, 09 March 2006, 00:45 GMT]
Gajendrakumar Ponnambalam, the Tamil National Alliance parliamentarian, speaking at a symposium in Brussels, Belgium,Tuesday, explained how the Sri Lanka state failed to win the consent of the Tamil people, whom it claimed to govern. "The Tamil Nation is being consistently denied meaningful access to Governance to pursue political, economic, social and cultural development. All three Sri Lanka constitutions entrenched the unitary character of the Sri Lanka State in the face of demand for power sharing arrangement by Tamils asserting their right to self-determination," said Mr Ponnambalam.


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Secondary School, pre-school open in Thattuvankotti

[TamilNet, Saturday, 04 March 2006, 21:03 GMT]
Ceremonial opening of a pre-school and a secondary school, constructed with financial assistance of German Technical Co-operation (GTZ) of the German Federal Government, took place in the ex-garrison town of Thaduvankoddy near Elephant Pass Wednesday, sources said. Mr. Sivakurunathan, Social Development officer at the Tamils Rehabilitation Organization (TRO), presided the event.
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Vaiko, Jayalalitha form alliance

[TamilNet, Saturday, 04 March 2006, 18:07 GMT]
Leader of MDMK, Vaiko, and Leader of AIADM and TamilNadu Chief Minister, Jayalalitha Jayaram, formed an alliance signing an agreement that allows Vaiko's MDMK to contest in 35 of the 234 Assembly seats in the forthcoming Assembly elections in TamilNadu, media reports from TamilNadu said.
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Move to install Buddha statue in Hindu Temple stirs controversy

[TamilNet, Thursday, 02 March 2006, 02:23 GMT]
Leader of Upcountry Peoples Front (UPF), Periyasamy Chandrasekaran, has brought to the attention of Inspector General of Police (IGP), Chandra Fernando, the alleged attempts by local Sinhala residents to install a Buddha statue inside the premises of the historic Hindu Temple in Ukkuwela in Avissawala, UPF media office said.
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Diaspora Tamil Organizations welcome Geneva Joint Statement

[TamilNet, Monday, 27 February 2006, 12:21 GMT]
The International Federation of Tamils (IFT), a Geneva based consortium of Tamil diaspora organisations, in a press release issued Monday commended the facilitators Norway, Sri Lanka's President Mahinda Rajapakse and the Liberation Tigers for bringing "relief to all peace loving people in the island." The press release also urged Mr Rajapakse to "use his power, influence and goodwill to prevail on those paramilitary cadres and get the seven TRO volunteers released immediately."
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Building Tamil Eelam State: Kristian Stokke

[TamilNet, Saturday, 25 February 2006, 10:54 GMT]
"Sri Lanka’s third Eelam War created a political-territorial division of the island with a resultant dual state structure in the North-East. In the context of the 2002 Ceasefire Agreement and based on earlier institutional experiments, the LTTE is currently engaged in a comprehensive process of state building within the areas they control," says Prof Stokke of Department of Sociology and Human Geography, University of Oslo, in an article which examines the emerging new Tamileelam state structure. He adds that only the "facilitation and dynamics of pro-democracy forces within the LTTE," will determine the transformation from "the"strong and centralized state," that currently exists.
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Sri Lanka Government's opening statement at Geneva

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 22 February 2006, 12:21 GMT]
"Ceasefire Agreement entered into between the then Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe and Mr. V. Prabhakaran, the leader of the LTTE on the 22nd February 2002 is contrary to our Constitution and law," declared Nimal Sripala De Silva, Head of the Sri Lankan delegation at the opening session of the talks between the Liberation Tigers and the Government of Sri Lanka.
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Armed men beat MAG staffers in Batticaloa

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 22 February 2006, 11:49 GMT]
Armed men in civilian clothes claiming to be belonging to paramilitary Karuna Group entered the offices of MAG (Mines Advisory Group) in Batticaloa at 2.55 p.m. Wednesday and beat a local staffer working at the office, and threatened the British national heading the Batticaloa office of MAG, sources in Batticaloa said.
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Ceasefire Agreement is foundation of peace and must be implemented - Balasingham

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 22 February 2006, 10:19 GMT]
Describing the February 2002 ceasefire agreement (CFA) as the “most constructive achievement” of the Norwegian peace process and “the foundation upon which the process has to be built,” the Liberation Tigers’ Chief Negotiator and Political Strategist, Anton Balasingham said Wednesday the CFA had been agreed upon by both the Sri Lankan government and the LTTE after “careful and meticulous scrutiny” and crafted with the skilled assistance of the Norwegian facilitators.
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Swiss officials welcome LTTE delegation in Geneva

[TamilNet, Saturday, 18 February 2006, 15:47 GMT]
The 12-member Liberation Tigers delegation arrived at the Geneva airport at 4.30 a.m. Saturday morning to attend the peace talks with the Government of Sri Lanka on 22-23rd February, and was met at the air port by the Swiss Foreign Ministry officials headed by Ms. Sidonia Gabriel (Programme officer, Peace Policy, Federal Department of Foreign Affairs), sources in Geneva said. Liberation Tigers Chief Negotiator and Political Strategist Mr. Anton Balasingham is expected to join the delegation on Monday afternoon, according to LTTE sources.
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ITAK fields Muslim candidates for Jaffna elections

[TamilNet, Saturday, 18 February 2006, 14:04 GMT]
"To show that Muslims and the Tamils have been living in harmony in the NorthEast and to further reinforce the amity between the two peoples we are competing on the Ilankai Tamil Arasu Kadchi (ITAK) ticket for the forthcoming Jaffna Municipal Council elections," said Moulavi S. M. Shahil and S. M .Suhair in a press meet held in Jaffna Saturday afternoon.
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NGOs in Kilinochchi demand release of TRO staffers

[TamilNet, Friday, 17 February 2006, 11:23 GMT]
The Kilinochchi Federation of NGOs staged a peace protest march Friday 17th in Kilinochchi at 10 am, demanding the release of the seven employees of the Tamils Rehabilitation Organisation (TRO), abducted at gun point and held captive for more than 20 days in the Wellikanda region by paramilitaries. The marchers condemned the abductors and demanded that the TRO staffers be released immediately.
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LTTE delegation leaves Kilinochchi for Geneva

[TamilNet, Friday, 17 February 2006, 11:21 GMT]
Liberation Tigers delegation left Kilinochchi Friday morning to participate in negotiations with Government of Sri Lanka(GOSL) facilitated by the Norwegian Government in Geneva, Switzerland scheduled to be held February 22-23. Head of LTTE Political Wing, Mr Thamilchelvan, told the media before leaving Kilinochchi that the talks will discuss ways to implement February 2002 Truce agreement between the parties who are meeting for direct talk after more than three years. The delegation departed Kilinochchi grounds in a Sri Lanka Air Force( SLAF) helicopter around 9:00 am Friday.
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The Importance of ‘Rearbase’: Taraki, 1989

[TamilNet, Friday, 17 February 2006, 02:05 GMT]
In the 29 October 1989 issue of Sri Lanka's English daily, Island International, late Dharmeratnam Sivaram, popular journalist and Senior editor at TamilNet, writes on the waning importance of a rear base in Tamil Nadu after the end of Eelam war I in 1987. "That a multipurpose comfortable rearbase would in the long term erode the conviction to fight and play into the hands of India was an opinion expressed in 1983. Finally the rearbase started becoming a factor that threatened to undermine the control various leaders had over their fighting cadres," Sivaram wrote.
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Civil society forum appeals for release of TRO workers

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 14 February 2006, 10:57 GMT]
A Civil Society Forum that included FORUT, Berghof Foundation, INFORM, Inpact, CHA (Consortium of Humanitarian Agencies), and Tamils Rehabilitation Organization (TRO), on 10 February passed a resolution appealing to the Sri Lanka government to fully investigate and secure the release of the seven remaining TRO personnel in the custody of the abductors. The group extended their support to the families of those abducted and expressed the wish that their loves ones be returned to them soon, sources said.


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TNA to contest eleven local councils in Trinco district

[TamilNet, Sunday, 12 February 2006, 16:27 GMT]
The Tamil National Alliance (TNA) is to contest eleven of thirteen local authorities in the Trincomalee administrative district in the forthcoming election to local councils. TNA will submit nomination lists for two urban councils (UC) and nine pradesiya sabahs (PS) under the election symbol, House, of the Ilankai Tamil Arasu Kadchchi (ITAK), TNA sources said.
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Swedish Tamils assist Muttur children's home

[TamilNet, Sunday, 12 February 2006, 02:05 GMT]
Expatriate Tamils' Consortium in Sweden has provided financial assistance for the Mother Sarathathevi Girls Home in Mallikaitivu village in the Muttur division as part of an ongoing effort to support assist the administration in day to day running of the children's home. The Girls home was founded in 1994 to give shelter to children who lost their parents in the war. Sarathathevi Girls Home currently looks after 30 girls, sources said
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