SLA allows EPDP, PA to rig at bridge

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 05 December 2001, 16:30 GMT]
A lecturer at the Jaffna University and three undergraduates were attacked by an armed gang of the Eelam People’s Democratic Party on the Palam Road near Arasadi junction close to Jaffna. In Batticaloa, a grenade was lobbed at the residence of the Tamil National Alliance candidate Indrakumar Prasanna in the heart of the high security zone in the eastern town. Election officials in Batticaloa said that although the Sri Lanka army claimed that it had barred Tamils from coming through the entry point at Vavunathivu near the eastern town for security reasons, goons of the People’s Alliance and the EPDP rigged thousands of votes at the clustered booths here from morning.
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Voters stopped by SLA demonstrate in Mankerni

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 05 December 2001, 11:11 GMT]
More than a thousand Tamils demonstrated in front of the Mankerni Sri Lanka army camp, 50 kilometres north of Batticaloa, this morning after the military refused them permission to pass the entry point to cast their votes Wednesday morning. The voters had come in buses, vans and tractors to the Mankerni SLA entry point from the villages of Panichchankerni, Vaakarai, Paalchenai etc., The SLA threatened to fire on the voters and their vehicles, sources said.
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SLA bars thousands of Tamils from voting in Batticaloa

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 05 December 2001, 05:44 GMT]
The Sri Lanka army barred thousands of Tamil voters in Batticaloa Wednesday from casting their votes. SLA sources in the east claimed that the main entry points from the district's western hinterland were closed on a special directive from President Chandrika Kumaratunga. More than 45,000 voters would not be able to cast their ballot because of the Presidential directive to shut down the entry points, Mr. Pon Selvarasa, ex-MP for Batticaloa and a candidate of the Tamil National Alliance said.
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Sinhala populism said driving PA, UNP agendas

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 04 December 2001, 16:53 GMT]
The persistent propaganda by President Chandrika Kumaratunga and senior ministers of her People's Alliance government that the opposition United National Party is conspiring with Liberation Tigers to undermine the Sinhala nation and the opposition's efforts to deny the charge are inexorably transforming the question of ending the war into a taboo, a spokesman for the Tamil National Alliance said Tuesday.
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Large crowds attend final TNA election rallies

[TamilNet, Sunday, 02 December 2001, 23:25 GMT]
Large crowds attended the final election rallies of the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) in Jaffna and Trincomalee held Sunday evening. About 15,000 people attended the TNA meeting held close to Nallur Kandaswamy Temple, said sources in the peninsula.
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General shut in NE against EPDP atrocity

[TamilNet, Thursday, 29 November 2001, 08:32 GMT]
Schools, shops, government offices and banks were closed in the districts of Batticaloa, Trincomalee, Vavuniya, Mannar and Jaffna in response to a call by the Tamil National Alliance for a general shut down in the north and east to protest against the Eelam People's Democratic Party, a major coalition partner of President Chandrika Kumaratunga's regime, for killing two civilians and attacking and grievously wounding four TNA candidates in Kayts, an island off the northern peninsula.
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LTTE leader makes special plea to the Sinhalese: 'reject racist forces, offer justice to the Tamils'

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 27 November 2001, 12:25 GMT]
In a special appeal made Tuesday to the majority Sinhala people faced with crucial parliamentary election early next month in Sri Lanka, Mr. Velupillai Pirapaharan, the leader of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), urged them to reject racist forces committed to militarism and war and to offer justice to the Tamil people to bring about peace, ethnic reconciliation and economic prosperity to the island.
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Buddhist monks condemn autonomy for Tamils

[TamilNet, Monday, 26 November 2001, 16:41 GMT]
Hundreds of Buddhist monks protested in Colombo Monday against granting an interim administrative council to run the northern and eastern parts of the island. The Sri Lankan government alleges that there is an insidious conspiracy by the United National party against the Sinhala people to hand over the northeastern province to the Liberation Tigers. President Chandrika Kumaratunga and Sinhala nationalists say that granting the LTTE the interim administration is treason. The protest was organised by the National Movement for the Defence of the Unitary State.
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CTTU urges Tamils to vote for TNA

[TamilNet, Sunday, 25 November 2001, 12:30 GMT]
Twenty thousand member strong Ceylon Tamil Teachers' Union (CTTU) has appealed to Tamil people to vote for the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) at the forthcoming general election "As the policy of the four party Tamil National Alliance is based on the decision taken at the 27th annual convention of the CTTU held March this year, the CTTU has decided to support the TNA at the forthcoming parliamentary election," said a resolution unanimously passed at the special executive committee meeting of the CTTU held at Trincomalee Sri Vigneswara Maha Vidyalayam Saturday night.
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Negotiations to end war said treason

[TamilNet, Friday, 23 November 2001, 17:35 GMT]
The United National Party Friday vehemently rejected Sri Lankan government's assertions that it is involved in an insidious conspiracy with the Liberation Tigers against the Sinhala people. State run print and electronic media gave wide publicity since Thursday to a telephone conversation allegedly between ex- UNP Parliamentarian Dr.Jayalath Jayawardena and an agent of the LTTE.
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Home Guards on the rampage in Serunuwara

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 21 November 2001, 20:16 GMT]
Three houses belonging to Tamil villagers were burnt down and several civilians were severely assaulted by Police Security Assistants (PSAs or 'Home Guards') in LB 3 Channel area in Serunuwara division, in the Trincomalee District Tuesday night. Bicycles and motorcycles were also damaged by the PSAs, sources said.
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14,000 Tamils in Mutur denied booths

[TamilNet, Thursday, 15 November 2001, 22:43 GMT]
The Returning Officer for Trincomalee district has turned down a request by the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) to set up clustered polling booths in Mutur south, enabling about 14,000 voters in the area to cast their votes on 5 December election. Instead, an additional bus service will be provided to the Tamil voters living in the region to travel to clustered polling stations set up near Mahindapura Sri Lanka Army camp and Muttur Al Hidaya School, he said.
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Sri Lanka rules out lifting LTTE ban

[TamilNet, Thursday, 15 November 2001, 02:47 GMT]
Sri Lanka’s President Chandrika Kumaratunga Tuesday categorically ruled out the possibility of lifting her government’s ban on the Liberation Tigers. Speaking at the presentation of her ruling People’s Alliance (PA) manifesto at her official residence, President Kumaratunga ruled out any truck with the Tamil National Alliance (TNA), the Island newspaper reported Wednesday. Commenting on reports of eroding support for the PA amongst the Tamil community, President Kumaratunga said the people of Jaffna were with her and the people under LTTE control were supporting the main opposition United National Party (UNP). "As for the Tamils in Colombo they are really not part of the Tamil community as a whole. They promote what is best for business," she said in derision, the Island reported.
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'Colombo lacks consistency, commitment'- TNA manifesto

[TamilNet, Monday, 12 November 2001, 15:29 GMT]
The Tamil National Alliance (TNA) Monday said that the Sri Lankan State lacks comprehension and consistency in its "purported efforts to evolve a just solutionî to the Tamil national question. The Alliance released its manifesto in Colombo Monday evening. "The commitment of the Sri Lankan State (to peace) has been called into serious question," the Tamil alliance manifesto states. The manifesto reiterated that the ban on the Liberation Tigers should be lifted in Sri Lanka and that Colombo should stop the war and begin negotiations with Norwegian mediation.
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Kumaratunga places anti-LTTE record as poll case

[TamilNet, Friday, 09 November 2001, 02:49 GMT]
(News Feature) Sri Lanka's President Kumaratunga Thursday placed her government's hardline approach towards fighting the Liberation Tigers and defending the unity of the country as the central plank of the ruling People's Alliance (PA) election strategy for the forthcoming polls in December. In a lengthy interview in Sinhala to state-owned media on Thursday, translated into English by the official Daily News newspaper on Friday, Kumaratunga also reiterated her accusations that the main opposition United National Party (UNP) was in collusion with the Tamils and the LTTE to dismember the country and vowed to prevent this at any cost. The President slammed critics of her governance as "barking dogs," defectors from her party as "rats," and insisted Sri Lanka's economy was healthy, citing as evidence figures that showed more taxis were on the roads since 1994 and that people were eating more chicken now.
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NE doctors strike over pay discrimination

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 07 November 2001, 12:16 GMT]
More than four hundred residential medical officers serving in Northeast provincial hospitals went on strike Wednesday, demanding that they should also be paid special mission allowance as presently awarded to non-residential medical officers. "The medical services in government hospitals in the northeast province have come to a standstill Wednesday due to the strike as more than one hundred non-residential doctors also have struck work to express their solidarity,"a spokesman of the Government Medical Officers' Association (GMOA) said Wednesday.
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Hartal in Batticaloa against Muslim local body

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 06 November 2001, 09:37 GMT]
Shops, schools, businesses and public offices were closed and few people were on the roads in the Batticaloa district in response to a call by the Tamil national alliance for a general shut down (Hartal) to protest against the establishment of a new Muslim dominated local government body. Tamils say that the new local body, the Koralaipattu Central Pradheshiya Sabha, unjustly encompasses a large Tamil region in the northern part of the Batticaloa district. The Sri Lanka army warned Tamil shop owners in the Valaichenai that they should not close their establishments today. But shops were closed Tuesday morning. Soldiers who came to the Valaichenai bazaar later in the morning forced the owners to open their shops.
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UNP protests, Tamil campaign begins in Vavuniya

[TamilNet, Sunday, 04 November 2001, 21:16 GMT]
United National Party candidates and supporters Sunday staged a protest against election violence in Vavuniya town while the Tamil National Alliance opened a campaign office on Vairavar Kovil Road in the town centre and held a joint propaganda meeting in Mudaliyakulam in the Cheddikulam division later in the day. The UNP demonstrated against the attack on the party's chief candidate for the district on Friday night in which gunmen suspected to be members of a Tamil Para-military group operating with the Sri Lanka army opened fire on the vehicle in which he was travelling.
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Embargo, war caused 13, 379 civilian deaths - report

[TamilNet, Sunday, 04 November 2001, 03:05 GMT]
Thirteen thousand three hundred and seventy nine civilians died in the Kilinochchi and Mullaithivu districts due to the war and the economic embargo imposed by the Sri Lankan government from 1990 to 1999, according to a press report in the Vanni published this weekend. Most of the deaths, destruction of civilian property and mass displacement tool place after the People's Alliance came to power in 1994, the report said. Four thousand eight hundred and seventy nine civilians died in the Mullaithivu district between 1994 and 1999 due to the direct impact of the economic embargo on the Vanni, particularly due to the severe restrictions on medical supplies.
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Tamil alliance call for LTTE deproscription

[TamilNet, Sunday, 04 November 2001, 01:06 GMT]
The leaders of the Tamil parties in the newly formed alliance said Saturday that they would strive, both nationally and internationally, to achieve the aims and objectives embodied in their memorandum of understanding to find a durable political solution to the Tamil national question through talks with the Liberation Tigers.
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