Sinhala nationalists support Mannar rape accused

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 18 April 2001, 20:16 GMT]
The former officer in charge of the Mannar Counter Subversive Unit (CSU) N.P.N.Suraweera who is accused of torturing and sexually assaulting two women in custody on 19 March filed a petition Wednesday in the court of appeal that the case against him should be heard in Colombo and not in the district court of Mannar. The Sinhala nationalist politician lawyer Mr. S.L Gunasekera appeared for the Police officer. Suraweera said in his petition that the two women were not raped in custody and that they started saying so only after the Mannar Bishop who, according to him, has close links with the Liberation Tigers visited them on 27 March.
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Third party 'crucial' in any peace talks- Balasingham

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 17 April 2001, 14:33 GMT]
The Liberation Tigers said this week that the involvement of a third party was crucial in any negotiations between them and the Sri Lankan government, and suggested that Norway might be fill that role as an extension of Oslo's present efforts to bring about talks between the two sides. In an interview to the Tamil Guardian weekly, the latest issue of which hit the newsstands in London Tuesday, the LTTE's chief negotiator, Anton Balasingham said "In our perspective the third party involvement is crucial even after the commencement of the negotiations."
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Tamils observe New Year amid fragile truce

[TamilNet, Friday, 13 April 2001, 16:38 GMT]
The Tamil New Year begins Friday night at 9.27 p.m. People wear new clothes and visit friends and relatives. During the festive season there is great demand for new bank notes, which are gifted as good will money ('Kai Muluththam') to friends and relatives. Many indigenous festivities traditionally associated with the New Year have greatly diminished due to SLA restrictions and curfews.
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Tamil parties protest in Colombo

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 10 April 2001, 15:12 GMT]
More than four hundred Tamils demonstrated against sexual violence by the Sri Lankan security forces in the heart of downtown Colombo Tuesday. The protest was led by an alliance of eleven Tamil political parties, including the Tamil United Liberation Front. " We are not, through this demonstration, making an appeal to the government. We believe that there is no point in appealing to this government about atrocities committed by the security forces against the Tamils. We doing this to impress upon the world our predicament" said the chief organizer of the demonstration, Mr. Mano Ganeshan who is the leader of the Democratic Workers' Congress.
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Police seek further imprisonment of Sivamani, Wijikala

[TamilNet, Monday, 09 April 2001, 13:33 GMT]
The Special Investigation Unit (SIU) of the Mannar Police Monday moved in the Mannar district court that Sivamani Weerakon and Nanthakumar Wijikala, the young women who were allegedly raped and brutally tortured in Police custody, be further remanded for fourteen days on grounds that they had confessed to offences under draconian Prevention of Terrorism Act and that they are suicide bombers sent by the LTTE to assassinate important persons. The SIU also stated that it was necessary to keep the women in custody because investigations about them are not yet over. Objecting to the SIU's application, Mr. K.S Ratnavale, the attorney who appeared for the accused, told the court, "this a funny application coming from the prosecution because the B report filed in court by the SIU moving for further remand has been signed by OIC Suraweera who has been accused of committing sexual offences against the two women. He should be the one behind bars".
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Pararajasingham says prisons toll death knell for Tamils

[TamilNet, Sunday, 08 April 2001, 12:25 GMT]
"The prison is said to be a high security, safe place for prisoners. But judging from various attacks on Tamil prisoners detained under the Prevention of Terrorism Act and the Emergency Regulations during the past eight years, prison has become a death knell for Tamil prisoners", said Mr. Joseph Pararajasingham, TULF MP for Batticaloa in a letter faxed to the Sri Lankan President about the brutal attack Saturday on Tamil prisoners held in the Negombo prison under the Immigrants and Emigrants (Amendment) Act No.42 of 1998. Fifteen Tamil prisoners who were on protest fast demanding that they be released on bail were injured when they were brutally attacked by prison guards Saturday. The condition of seven is serious.
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Tamil women have no faith in President - MP

[TamilNet, Saturday, 07 April 2001, 11:30 GMT]
"The Tamil women of this country have no faith in the President or the government because there is no justice when wrongs are perpetrated on them by the armed forces. The recent actions of the President are encouraging the army to further indulge in sexual atrocities against Tamil women. Although she is a woman the President does not bother to take even minimal action against the perpetrators of murder and rape. The President applauds the security forces and does what she can to cover up their heinous activities against the Tamil people. Sexual atrocities have been committed on Tamil women in Mannar many times in the past. But only the 19 March incident has come to light", said Mr. Selvam Adaikkalanathan Member of Parliament for the Vanni, speaking Saturday at the protest fast at the St. MaryÌs Church in Mannar town. More than three thousand people from many parts of the Mannar district took part in the fast to protest against the brutal rape and torture of two Tamil women in custody by the Sri Lanka Navy and the Counter Subversive Unit of the Police on 19 March.
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Jaffna MP lambastes Colombo's duplicity

[TamilNet, Thursday, 05 April 2001, 18:32 GMT]
Sri Lanka's Deputy Minister for Defence, Gen. Anuruddha Ratwatte, flatly denied that the security forces had raped two women in detention in Mannar, interrupting the All Ceylon Tamil Congress MP for Jaffna, Mr. Vinayagamoorthy, who was on his feet in the Parliament Thursday speaking on the destruction of Tamil temples in the north and east and the rape of women in Mannar. "The statement of the Deputy Minister of Defence is tantamount to a gross intimidation of the judicial process. It shows that the government is more eager to justify such atrocities by its security forces than it is to bring the perpetrators of such crimes to book", Mr. Vinayagamoorthy told TamilNet Thursday evening.
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10,000 Tamils rally at UN

[TamilNet, Monday, 02 April 2001, 21:23 GMT]
Over ten thousand Tamils rallied outside the United Nations building in Geneva on Monday calling for international pressure on Sri Lanka to negotiate with the Liberation Tigers and to support of the Tamil right to self-determination. Tamil expatriates converged from several European cities by special trains and busses to take part in the annual peace march through the main streets of Geneva to coincide with the occasion of the 57th session of the UN Commission on Human Rights (UNCHR), organisers said.
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Tamil teachers urge Colombo to recognise self-determination

[TamilNet, Saturday, 31 March 2001, 13:56 GMT]
"We urge the Sri Lankan Government to find a permanent political solution to the ethnic problem by having peace talks with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam with Norwegian facilitation. We also urge the Sri Lankan government to recognise the Tamils of Sri Lanka as a nation, the existence of an identified Tamil homeland in Sri Lanka and the self-determination of the Tamil people with the right to secede in order to prevent the division of the island" states a resolution unanimously passed at 27th annual convention of the Ceylon Tamil Teachers' Union held Saturday morning in the Trincomalee St.Mary's College auditorium.
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Girl describes bizarre Police torture in SC petition

[TamilNet, Saturday, 31 March 2001, 10:01 GMT]
Sri Lanka’s Supreme Court this week granted leave to proceed with the fundamental rights petition of a Tamil girl from Kayts in Jaffna who says Policemen tortured her in detention by repeatedly inserting a plantain flower soaked in chilli powder into her vagina. The girl who is currently being held in the Negombo remand prison states in her petition to the Supreme Court that she was hung on a pole inserted between her thighs and arms which had been tied together below the knee and that he body was made to swing in that position; that she was hung from the roof and battered with a cudgel; that Policemen tortured her by pricking under her finger and toe nails with paper pins until she bled; that she was mercilessly assaulted with poles and wires and trampled with boots. The girl also states in her petition that although she had appealed to the Human Rights Commission and the Presidential Committee on Unlawful Arrests and Harassment, they had not taken any action regarding her predicament. The case was fixed for hearing on 7 June 2001.
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Batticaloa undergrads condemn state terrorism, rape

[TamilNet, Friday, 30 March 2001, 17:28 GMT]
More than a thousand students of the Eastern University in Batticaloa Friday staged a protest against the rape and torture of Sivamani and Wijikala, the two women who were tortured and raped in the custody of the Counter Subversive Unit (CSU) of the Sri Lankan Police in Mannar on 19 March. The student protestors condemned the attitude of the Women's rights groups in the north and east, which, according to them, deliberately choose to ignore the atrocities perpetrated on women like Ida Kamalitta, Koneswary, Sivamani and Wijikala.
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Jaffna Mayor condemns US ambassador's speech

[TamilNet, Thursday, 29 March 2001, 17:46 GMT]
Jaffna Mayor Mr.N Raviraj, Thursday said at the monthly meeting of the Municipal Council that he strongly condemns the comments of the US ambassador Ashley Wills on the rights of the Tamils in his speech at the Jaffna public library on 7 March. The Mayor said that the people of Jaffna were very much angered by the US ambassador's attitude.
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Eastern Tamils march against eviction

[TamilNet, Sunday, 25 March 2001, 13:39 GMT]
Hundreds of Tamil men and women of Linganagar, a settlement in Trincomalee town on land which the Sri Lanka army claims to own, marched through the streets of Trincomalee Sunday morning amidst tight security by armed police shouting slogans and carrying banners and placards demanding the government that they should be allowed to live on their land.
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Colombo's ceasefire intransigence censured

[TamilNet, Saturday, 24 March 2001, 16:22 GMT]
"The Sri Lankan government can be no longer unconcerned with the safety and security and well being of the Tamil people, particularly when the other party to the conflict, the Liberation Tigers, has extended its unilateral ceasefire for another month. The safety, security and the well being of the Tamil people must no longer be subordinated to the exigencies of military strategies", Mr. R. Sampanthan, Secretary General of the Tamil United Liberation Front told Tamilnet Saturday.
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Vavuniya Pass violates fundamental right- Ilancheliyan

[TamilNet, Friday, 23 March 2001, 18:30 GMT]
The Vavuniya district judge Mr. Manickavasagam Ilancheliyan ordered Police officers in charge of the checkpoints in Eeratpaeriyakulam and the town’s railway station Friday that they should forthwith stop sending back to persons, almost exclusively Tamils, from Colombo and other parts of the island on grounds that they do not have documents demanded by them or issuing such visitors passes that limit their stay only within Vavuniya. He told the Police that they have no authority in law to issue limited temporary residence passes to persons coming to Vavuniya from Colombo and other parts of the country or to refuse them permission to enter this northern border town. The judge pointed out in his order that there is no basis in law to issue to such passes.
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Anuradhapura players pique Batticaloa SLA

[TamilNet, Monday, 19 March 2001, 15:10 GMT]
The Sri Lanka army Monday stopped a street play performed by a Sinhala group in Batticaloa, objecting to a character of the skit who was in military uniform. The group, Saama Sevaya Cultural Forum from the village of Talawa in Anuradhapura, was scheduled to perform the play, Tears of Blood, in several parts of Batticaloa Monday. The SLA at Santhively, 24 kilometres north of Batticaloa town, interrupted the play and took away all 16 members of the troupe performing in the premises of Thadakam, a social service organisation in the area, to its camp for questioning around 11.30 a.m. this morning.
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"Kadirgamar betraying Tamils for mess of pottage" - Maheswaran

[TamilNet, Saturday, 17 March 2001, 15:21 GMT]
Mr. Thiyagarajah Maheswaran, opposition MP for Jaffna, Saturday accused Sri Lanka's Foreign Minister Mr.Lakshman Kadirgamar of betraying the Tamil people to make a living. The MP, speaking on the People's Alliance budget, said Mr. Kadirgamar is urging countries to ban the Liberation Tigers in order to keep his job by begging the government.
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Mutur magistrate sets a precedent

[TamilNet, Saturday, 17 March 2001, 10:23 GMT]
The Mutur Magistrate this week issued certificates that the deaths of seven Tamil farmers in the Poomarathadihchenai massacre in Trincomalee district were due to gunshot and cut injuries. Representatives of the International Committee of Red Cross on Thursday went to Poonagar and handed over the death certificates to the families of the dead, enabling them to claim compensation and relief. Magisterial inquests are not held for Tamils who are killed thus in border villages. As a consequence, hundreds of Tamil families in border villages that have lost their sole breadwinners are denied poverty relief as they cannot produce death certificates for the diseased required by the authorities to accept and process their applications.
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Official apathy, malnutrition plague Trinco refugees

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 14 March 2001, 21:30 GMT]
(NEWS FEATURE) Over 75 percent of refugee children under five living in conflict zones of the northeastern province suffer from malnutrition, according to preliminary surveys by government and NGO officials presented at a three-day workshop inaugurated Wednesday morning at Trincomalee Town Hall under the auspices of Sri Lanka's Ministry of Planning and Implementation. The surveys indicate that the majority of mothers among the displaced in these regions suffer from malnutrition during pregnancy and after childbirth.
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