Singhalese monopolise Sri Lanka's national wealth - TNA MP

[TamilNet, Saturday, 20 November 2004, 00:29 GMT]
“This budget has been made to look after the interests of the Sinhala people. The Tamil people have been totally denied the right to share the national wealth of this country. Under Article 148 of the Sri Lankan constitution public finance is in the full control of this Parliament. This is a Sinhala Buddhist dominated Parliament. It means that the Singhalese have monopoly over national wealth. Hence the Tamil people can never hope to benefit from Sri Lanka’s budget”, said Mr. S. Gajendran, Tamil National Alliance MP for Jaffna, speaking on the budget in Sri Lanka’s Parliament Friday.
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Jaffna undergrads urge India not to support Colombo

[TamilNet, Friday, 19 November 2004, 17:47 GMT]
Jaffna University Students Union (JUSU) Friday wrote to the Indian Prime Minister Mr.Manmohan Singh not to extend his Government's support to Sri Lanka government in its attempts to crush the freedom struggle of Eelam Tamils by providing financial assistance for the implementation of the Palaly airbase runway project in Jaffna district, sources in Jaffna said.


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Jaffna IDPs oppose Palaly runway extension

[TamilNet, Thursday, 18 November 2004, 03:23 GMT]
Union of Welfare Organizations of Displaced (UWOD) in Jaffna District Thursday in a press release appealed to the Government of India not to lend any assistance to the Sri Lanka government's plan to extend the Palaly airbase runway which will make the hundreds of thousands of internally displaced people permanent in refugee camps and welfare centres, civil sources said.
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Tamil women's Confluence Event held in Trinco

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 17 November 2004, 03:32 GMT]
Tamil women associations in Varothiar Nagar- Puthukuddiyiurpu, a suburb three km off north of Trincomalee town held a "Women's Confluence (Sangamam)" Monday evening at Varothiar Nagar Barathi Tamil Vidiyalayam and handed over a birthday greeting card to Ms Kaaronja, Liberation Tigers' Trincomalee district women political wing to be forwarded to the LTTE leader Mr.V.Pirapaharan on his fiftieth birthday, sources attending the event said.
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TRO organizes Pre-School teacher training in NorthEast

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 16 November 2004, 09:00 GMT]
Tamils Rehabilitation Organization (TRO) is conducting training programmes to pre school teachers and pre school development coordinators jointly with Forut and SCiSL throughout NorthEast covering all the communities through a bottom up organization, Pre-School Education Development Centre, TRO sources said.


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'Sinhala consensus is a perfidious mirage'- MP

[TamilNet, Monday, 15 November 2004, 15:46 GMT]
"Sinhala parties will never come to a consensus on a political settlement to the ethnic conflict. It won't happen even if we Tamils wait patiently for another fifty years in deference to the wishes of the international community. The so called 'Sinhala Consensus' is a perfidious mirage. It is now time for the Tamil people to call the bluff and prepare to forge ahead on their own", said Mr. Senathirajah Jeyanandamoorthy, TNA MP for Batticaloa, speaking to TamilNet Monday about Colombo's reaction to the latest proposal by the LTTE to restart the long stalled peace talks in Sri Lanka.
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Sinhala leaders didn't understand power sharing -Rupasinghe

[TamilNet, Sunday, 14 November 2004, 18:49 GMT]
"Sinhala leaders have no understanding of the Tamil question. They did not understand how to share power since 1948 (when the island was granted independence by the British). Power has been Sinhala. Sri Lankan armed forces are 99 percent Sinhala. Tamil is not implemented as an official language. How can we transform a Sinhala hegemonic state into a federal one? This is the challenge before us" said Mr. Kumar Rupasinghe, a leading peace activist in Sri Lanka.
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Free kids computer parks said basis for e-society

[TamilNet, Sunday, 14 November 2004, 10:29 GMT]
“Our objective is to spread computer literacy among the Tamil people. Our leader wants to create an e-society in the Tamil homeland. It is the foundation on which he plans to build an efficient e-government for our people. The best way to do it is to invest knowledge of Information Technology in our children. This is the idea that inspired the Free Kids Computer Parks (FKCP)”, Mr. S. Nalan, head of Students’ Organisation of Thamil Eelam, told TamilNet Sunday as he showed around the first FKCP in Kilinochchi.
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'Will come to power soon' proclaims JVP

[TamilNet, Saturday, 13 November 2004, 17:57 GMT]
Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) Sri Lanka's powerful Marxist Sinhala nationalist party and President Chandrika Kumaratunga main coalition partner, Saturday marked the 15th death anniversary of its founder Rohana Wijeweera with a massive public meeting at the Sugathadasa Indoor Stadium in Colombo.Addressing the meeting, Mr. Tilvin Silva, general secretary of the JVP, lambasted the United National Party, accusing its leader Mr. Ranil Wickremesinghe of conspiring with the Liberation Tigers to divide the island nation. JVP is stridently opposed to granting regional autonomy to Tamils.
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TNA MPs, LTTE activist attend Ifthar in Trincomalee

[TamilNet, Saturday, 13 November 2004, 05:42 GMT]
Mr.R.Sampanthan and Mr.K.Thurairatnasingham, Tamil National Alliance (TNA) parliamentarians from the Trincomalee district, Mr.M.S.Thowfeek, former parliamentarian and a leading member of the Sri Lanka Muslim Congress (SLMC), Mr.Puratchi, head of the Trincomalee District Thamileelam Students Unit of the Liberation Tigers participated at the 'Ifthar' function held Friday evening at the Trincomalee Mohaideen Andavar Mosque, sources said.
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Media should promote ISGA- paper

[TamilNet, Friday, 12 November 2004, 11:48 GMT]
Pointing out the declaration by South Asia Free Media Association (SAFMA) that said "ISGA proposal could serve as useful basis for the commencement of talks to map out an interim structure," and to the statement made by Prof Uyangoda that there is "imperative need for the Sinhala leadership to abandon its mindset vis-à-vis the State structure based on majoritarian hegemony," Tamil daily Thinakural in its Wednesday editorial said that the "regional and the national media organizations which have taken hardline positions on ISGA should adopt a positive, flexible attitude."
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Upcountry Tamils face "dismal prospect" - UPF

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 10 November 2004, 19:14 GMT]
Upcountry Tamils, many of whom still live in lands owned and controlled by their employers, face "dismal prospect" of being thrown out of their lands within the next decade as a result of the "menacing rise of racism" in the country, Mr. M. Sivalingam, Secretary General of the Upcountry People’s Front (UPF), said speaking at a book launching ceremony held at Samimalai, Bogawanthalawa in Hatton district Tuesday.
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"Tamils have right to make their own constitution" – Mavai

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 10 November 2004, 08:52 GMT]
“The objective before us is to make our own constitution on the basis of our sovereignty, which is inalienable. We have the right to do it. The signing of the ceasefire agreement between the leader of the Tamil nation and the Prime Minister of the Sinhala nation proved that there are two states on this island”, said Mr. Mavai Senathirajah, Tamil National Alliance MP for Jaffna, speaking at the opening of the new building of the Thamil Eelam Law College in Kilinochchi Wednesday. The Thamil Eelam Law College was declared open by Ms. Adele Balasingham.
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TNA MPs meet Solheim

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 09 November 2004, 11:25 GMT]
Norwegian Special Peace Envoy, Mr Eric Solheim, who arrived in Sri Lanka Tuesday morning, met with a Tamil National Alliance (TNA) delegation led by Senior M.P Joseph Pararasingham at the Norwegian Embassy in Colombo, political sources in Colombo said. Jaffna district parliamentarians Gajendrakumar Ponnambalam, Ms Padmini Sithamparanathan, S. Gajenthiran, and Suress Premachchandran accompanied Mr Pararajasingham to the meeting.
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Mannar Bishop slams Kumaratunga's stand on Indian poaching

[TamilNet, Monday, 08 November 2004, 18:46 GMT]
Mannar Fishermen Monday temporarily gave up their protest against Indian poaching after Maj. Gen. Parami Kulatunga, Sri Lankan security forces commander for Vanni, promised them that he would take measures within two weeks to stop Indian fishermen from entering the seas off the Mannar coast. A conference to discuss Indian poaching was held Monday at the Bishop House in Mannar. "I have raised this matter with the President on several occasions. And everytime I was told that Indians cannot be antagonised on this score", Mannar Bishop Rt. Rev. Rayappu Joseph said, addressing the conference.
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NESOHR chair addresses US event

[TamilNet, Sunday, 07 November 2004, 19:15 GMT]
Rev Father Karunaratnam, Chairman of the NorthEast Secretariat on Human Rights (NESOHR), delivered the key note address at the the Annual General Meeting of Ilankai Tamil Sangam (ITS), USA held in New York Saturday. He urged expatriate Tamils in the US to become politically more active to raise the plight of Sri Lankan Tamils in the US political fora. He described the human rights situation in the NorthEast and the efforts of the NESOHR to address rights issues. Two books related to Tamil struggle were also released at the event.
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TELO launches savings project for war-affected students

[TamilNet, Sunday, 07 November 2004, 17:04 GMT]
Tamil Eelam Liberation Organization (TELO), a constituent of the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) Sunday launched a project to assist Tamil medium students affected by the war in Trincomalee district by opening savings accounts in their names in the State run People's Bank, sources from Trincomalee said.
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Who will espouse Tamil concerns to Delhi?: paper questions

[TamilNet, Sunday, 07 November 2004, 13:18 GMT]
Stating that, "Although India has unambiguously said that she will not become directly involved in Sri Lankan peace process, yet, the two main southern political camps as well as the Norwegian facilitators have never failed to brief Delhi on the status of the issue, and even Japanese Special Envoy Yasushi Akashi who was in Sri Lanka last week also flew direct to Delhi," the editorial in Tamil daily Thinakkural Sunday, urged the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) parliamentarians to take immediate steps to meet with India's leaders to convince them of the legitimacy of the Tamil cause.
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Funeral held for Trinco Tamil Scholar

[TamilNet, Saturday, 06 November 2004, 19:17 GMT]
The demise of veteran Tamil scholar Mr.R.Vadivelu at this critical juncture is an irreparable loss to the Tamils in the Trincomalee district, said Mr.R.Sampanthan, Trincomalee district parliamentarian, when giving the eulogy at his funeral cermony held Saturday evening. Later the remains of late scholar were taken to Trincomalee Hindu cemetery in a procession and cremated.


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Secession demand, Tamils right until aspirations constitutionalized- NSSP

[TamilNet, Saturday, 06 November 2004, 11:33 GMT]
"Tamils have the right to demand a separate State until their aspirations are adequately met, constitutionally entrenched and implemented. If this were done the demand would cease to be valid. It is well known that the Provincial Council system failed, as did all previous attempts at a solution to the Tamil national question since the l950s," said Nava Sama Samaja Party (NSSP), a pro-peace marxist party, in a media release issued Friday in Colombo.
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