MP slams criminal outfit for Kinniya troubles

[TamilNet, Thursday, 23 October 2003, 12:20 GMT]
Police declared indefinite curfew in Kinniya, south of Trincomalee, Thursday after Muslim mobs attacked the homes of two Parliamentarians in the area and abducted six Tamils. Police said the mobs, inflamed when Sri Lanka army units rescued the abducted Tamil civilians, stoned the troops. “This is the work of a criminal outfit that is trying to create a big Tamil Muslim clash for narrow political gain”, charged Mr. M. A. M (Sinna) Mahroof, UNP MP for Trincomalee whose house in Kinniya was attacked and completely ransacked.
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Kinniya under indefinite curfew

[TamilNet, Thursday, 23 October 2003, 11:38 GMT]
SL Police clamped an indefinite curfew in Kinniya, south of Trincomalee, Thursday after Muslims abducted six Tamils and attacked homes of two local MPs, sources in Trincomalee said.
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Police block anti-peace demonstrators reaching Trinco SLMM office

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 22 October 2003, 14:37 GMT]
The Eastern Peoples' Front, which is locally considered as a front organization of the Sinhala nationalist and Marxist Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna, Wednesday held a hartal (general shutdown) and demonstration in Trincomalee town against the presence of the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission and the establishment of an Interim Administration for the northeast province, sources said.
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'Failure to accept IA proposal will invite International displeasure' - Karuna

[TamilNet, Sunday, 19 October 2003, 16:11 GMT]
"If the Government of Sri Lanka fails to accept the Interim Administration proposals that we have developed with the assistance of our legal and constitutional experts and consultations with many Governments of the West, the Sri Lanka Government will have to face severe international displeasure," said Col.Karuna during a special interview to a local daily when he arrived at the Illupadichcheni sports ground on his return from his foreign trip.


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'Safeguard Tamil language and culture' -GA

[TamilNet, Saturday, 18 October 2003, 00:46 GMT]
"Tamils in Ilankai (Sri Lanka) and those displaced from here in the Diaspora are rendering great service to the promotion and continued vitality of the Tamil language. The services they render to the creation of literary work in Tamil have been commended as being better than even in India," said Mr. K. Ganesh, the Vavuniya district Government Agent, speaking at the evening program of the Tamil literary festival in Vavuniya Thursday.
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Security and land Tamils' chief concern – Minister

[TamilNet, Thursday, 16 October 2003, 17:13 GMT]
“The Singhalese should decide whether we are going to have a united Sri Lanka or Eelam and Sri Lanka. The peace process may take years. But the conflict should be resolved before the next elections”, said Dr. Rajitha Senaratne, Minister of Lands, speaking at a workshop on ‘Devolution of Power: To what extent in Sri Lanka – Lessons Learnt in Europe’, in Colombo Thursday.
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Batticaloa Deminers to be given one month training

[TamilNet, Thursday, 16 October 2003, 15:40 GMT]
New deminers recruited recently for the Batticaloa district will be given one month training starting on October 25, said Ms. Teresa Tavares, the official in charge of demining in the district.
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Canadian Foreign Minister visits Jaffna

[TamilNet, Thursday, 16 October 2003, 13:28 GMT]
"I have come to Jaffna today to see first hand the devastation wrought by the long and tragic conflict, and to gain better understanding of the ground realities," said Canadian Foreign Minister Mr. Bill Graham, addressing a press conference Thursday at the UNHCR office in Jaffna.
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Education on Tamil history stressed by Eastern academic

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 14 October 2003, 16:40 GMT]
Tamil students are forced to learn the history of the Sinhalese, but the history of the Tamils is not part of the subjects taught to them under the current education plan in Sri Lanka, said Ms. Ruby Valentina Francis, a researcher and lecturer at the Eastern University, speaking at the release of a new book titled "Vanniar of Tamil Nadu and Vanniar of Eelam," authored by poet Vellavur Gopal, held Sunday at the Mahajana College hall in Batticaloa, sources in Batticaloa said.
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Human skulls, bones unearthed in Thiraikerni

[TamilNet, Monday, 13 October 2003, 14:15 GMT]
Human remains were found in a pit near the Periyathambiran Temple in Thiruaikerni, 57km south of Batticaloa town in the Batticaloa-Pottuvil road when Thirukerni residents were cleaning the temple compound during a shramadana effort Sunday.
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Tamils, Muslims should work for harmony -LTTE

[TamilNet, Friday, 10 October 2003, 12:02 GMT]
The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) Friday said elements that had been responsible for the recent clash in Mutur are now involved in creating ethnic tension in Kinniya division between Tamils and Muslims. The LTTE Trincomalee district political secretariat Friday issued a statement appealing to both communities to maintain patience and to understand the truth behind the current tension in Kinniya.
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Kinniya under police curfew

[TamilNet, Thursday, 09 October 2003, 16:50 GMT]
The Divisional Secretariat division of Kinniya in the Trincomalee district has been brought under dusk-to-dawn curfew with effect from Thursday evening till Friday morning to defuse tension between Muslims and Tamils at the Faizal Nagar area following a land dispute, police said.
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Muslim-Tamil tension in Trinco south village

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 08 October 2003, 18:50 GMT]
More than four hundred families from Aalangkulam, south of Trincomalee, left their village Wednesday evening in fear of attacks by a Muslim group, residents from the area said. “The situation remains tense here among the Tamils,” Mr. Ketheeswaran Arunasalam, President of the village temple’s trustee board, told TamilNet.
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IA shouldn’t erode Tamil sovereignty- CTTU

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 08 October 2003, 18:46 GMT]
The branch of the Ceylon Tamil Teachers Union (CTTU) in Mullaithivu Wednesday evening urged the leader of the Liberation Tigers, Mr. Velupillai Pirapaharan, to secure an interim administration for the northeast ‘without giving up even in least measure’ the Tamil nation’s sovereignty.’ In a memorandum addressed to the LTTE leader, the Mullaithivu CTTU said: “Law and order should be under the interim administration to safeguard our sovereignty."
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Pre-school teachers celebrate teachers’ day in Vavuniya

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 08 October 2003, 00:02 GMT]
At the Teachers’ day held at the Suthananda Hindu Youth Union Hall in Vavuniya town Monday, with the support of the Tamils’ Rehabilitation Organization (TRO), more than 350 pre-school teachers from the 24 zonal districts of the Northeast province participated, sources said.
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‘War has ruined education of NE Tamil students’

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 07 October 2003, 18:12 GMT]
The Dean of the Faculty of Business Studies in the Vavuniya campus of the Jaffna University, Mr.R. Nanthakumar, Tuesday said that the twenty-year war has ruined the education of students in the Northeast province, and the standard of education among Tamil students in the province has gone down to the extent that more students enter universities on district quota system than on merit as in the past.
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Stateless Tamils’ long struggle bears fruit

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 07 October 2003, 16:59 GMT]
A bill to grant citizenship to 168,141 stateless Tamils in Sri Lanka descended from people who settled in the hill districts of the island in the 19th century was passed Tuesday without opposition in Sri Lanka’s Parliament. Speaking on the bill, Mr. Arumugan Thondman MP, leader of the Ceylon Workers’ Congress, the largest Tamil political party in the hill districts, said: “These people have contributed so much to this country but were denied all their rights and had to struggle for 55 years to achieve the rights they had prior to 1948. This is symbolic of the ethnic divide in this country.”
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Teachers protest 'Sinhalization' of Tamil schools

[TamilNet, Monday, 06 October 2003, 15:11 GMT]
The Twenty thousand-member strong Ceylon Tamil Teachers' Union (CTTU) Monday warned that it would launch a massive agitation campaign in collaboration with Tamil political parties if the Western Provincial Council failed to stop posting Sinhalese teachers to Tamil medium schools. The People's Allaince (PA) controls the Western Provincial Council administration.
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NE observes death anniversary of LTTE leaders

[TamilNet, Sunday, 05 October 2003, 18:55 GMT]
The sixteenth death anniversary of twelve LTTE cadres, including senior commanders Lt. Col. Pulendran and Lt. Col. Kumarappa, was held at Theeruvil in Valvettithurai in Jaffna district Sunday with the opening of the renovated memorial tomb, which was destroyed by the Sri Lanka Army when it captured the peninsula in 1996, sources said.
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Cole, Chang lead US Patriot Act challenge by Tamils

[TamilNet, Sunday, 05 October 2003, 00:05 GMT]
Professor David Cole of Georgetown University and Nancy Chang, Senior attorney at Center for Constitutional Rights, New York, will lead the legal challenge against the provision of the USA Patriot Act that criminalizes the provision of “expert advice and assistance” to proscribed organizations. Plaintiffs in this case filed by CCR include four US Tamil organizations and a Tamil-American physician, according to CCR attorneys.
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