Entire village displaced

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 15 November 2000, 19:18 GMT]
The entire hamlet of Soodaikuda in the Muttur area south of Trincomalee town has been displaced due to continuous artillery attack by the government forces. 148 people belonging to 46 families - all Tamils - residing in Soodaikuda have sought refuge in a school at Sampoor village, officials attached to local humanitarian organisations said.
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Twenty arrested in Badulla

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 15 November 2000, 19:14 GMT]
Sri Lankan police arrested twenty Tamils during a search operation in the hill town of Badulla, about 175 km. east of Colombo Wednesday. The operation began around 1 p.m. and went on till 5 p.m. sources said.
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Tamil refugees arrested

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 14 November 2000, 15:32 GMT]
Three Tamil refugees staying at Kalmadu camp were arrested on Sunday and are now being detained at the at Welikanda police station for interrogation, sources said.
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Tamils demand International presence in massacre probe

[TamilNet, Monday, 13 November 2000, 02:18 GMT]
Tamil people of Trincomalee has sent a memorandum to the Secretary General of the United Nations (UN) this evening requesting him to take immediate steps to inform the Sri Lankan government to include representatives from United Nations, Amnesty International, European Union and Commonwealth Secretariat to investigate the massacre of 29 Tamil detainees at Bindunuwewa Rehabilitation Center, Bandarawela, last month.
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15 men reported missing

[TamilNet, Saturday, 11 November 2000, 21:45 GMT]
Fifteen Tamils from Kopaveli, a village situated 30 km northwest of Batticaloa town, who went to collect firewood in the forests near Ampara border, have been reported missing by their relatives.
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President urges unity against terrorism

[TamilNet, Friday, 10 November 2000, 01:17 GMT]
(News Feature) Sri Lanka’s President Chandrika Kumaratunge told Parliament Thursday that she was prepared to talk to the Liberation Tigers about a solution to the island’s conflict within the limits of a united Sri Lanka, but said the war “against terrorism” would continue. Addressing Sri Lanka’s newly formed Parliament, she said that “military action against terrorists”, along with her proposed constitutional reforms and the forming of “national unity” was part of her government’s strategy to solve the island’s ethnic conflict. “It is our expectation to finish this war very soon,” she said.
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Demonstrators protest in Kaluwankerny

[TamilNet, Friday, 03 November 2000, 18:52 GMT]
About 500 villagers demonstrated in Kaluwankerny, about 20 km. north of Batticaloa, protesting against the massacre of Tamil detainees at Bandarawela detention centre last week and the slaying of Jaffna based journalist Nimalarajan.
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Early international involvement in massacre inquiry urged

[TamilNet, Thursday, 02 November 2000, 16:46 GMT]
The Tamil United Liberation Front (TULF) has told the Minister of Justice that it is only the very early active involvement of neutral independent international investigators that can ensure a credible investigative process into the Bandarawela-Bindunuwewa massacre.
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Norway meets LTTE in Vanni

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 01 November 2000, 16:32 GMT]
A delegation of the Norwegian government met with the leader of the Liberation Tigers, Mr.Velupillai Pirapaharan, and other LTTE officials in the Vanni this week, the organisation said Wednesday in a statement from its London offices. The discussions, described as "cordial and constructive" covered "several pertinent issues" including the issue of political negotiations, statement said.
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Hills said quiet, tense

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 31 October 2000, 17:14 GMT]
Shops and schools remained closed and there was little traffic on the main roads in Sri Lanka's tea producing Nuwara Eliya district as thousands of Tamil plantation workers went on strike. The Sri Lankan government Tuesday cancelled all leave for Police personnel in view of the situation. Meanwhile, one person was reported killed and another critically injured when the Police opened fire on a group of Tamils in Boralanda town in the Haputale area Monday evening and arrested eighteen of them.
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US Congressmen condemn prison massacre

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 31 October 2000, 01:44 GMT]
Congressmen Benjamin Gilman, Sherrod Brown and Brad Shermen, in a letter addressed to the Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, urged her to "register her concern with the Government of Sri Lanka regarding the brutal murder of 24 Tamil prisoners" and "to support an independent and international inquiry." They further asked the Secretary to "urge the Sri Lankan Government to release all Tamil prisoners who are being held in custody without being charged with a crime."
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Mob attacks continue in Nuwara Eliya

[TamilNet, Monday, 30 October 2000, 16:19 GMT]
An second, 24 hour curfew was declared in several towns in the Nuwara Eliya district, about 100 km. east of Colombo, as communal violence against the Tamils continued for a second day. Sinhalese thugs set fire to twenty shops belonging to Tamils in Ginigathhena Monday afternoon, and fourteen people were injured in the riots, said sources.
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International participation urged in massacre investigation

[TamilNet, Sunday, 29 October 2000, 19:05 GMT]
The Tamil United Liberation Front (TULF) has appealed to the President of Sri Lanka to hold an impartial criminal investigative process inclusive of neutral international investigators into the crimes committed at Binudunuwewa rehabilitation centre, Bandarawela. The Secretary General of the TULF, Mr.R.Sampanthan in a letter to the President has requested her to ensure protection to the surviving detainees who would be prime witnesses to the investigation.
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Mobs attack protesters, burn down shops

[TamilNet, Sunday, 29 October 2000, 12:42 GMT]
Riots broke out in the hill town of Talawakele, about 25 km. south-west of Nuwara Eliya as Sinhalese mobs attacked people protesting over the massacre of Tamil detainees at the Bindunuwewa detention centre last Wednesday. Two Tamils were killed and several others were wounded when police opened fire, said Mr. P.Chandrasekaran MP. The leader of the Upcountry People's Front also told TamilNet that the mobs later went on a rampage in the town, setting fire to several Tamil-owned shops.
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Police name massacre victims

[TamilNet, Friday, 27 October 2000, 06:20 GMT]
Sri Lankan police has released names of 13 Tamil detainees massacred at the Bindunuwewa detention center in Bandarawela on Wednesday. The police said many bodies are charred beyond recognition by the fire at the Centre.
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Several said missing after massacre

[TamilNet, Thursday, 26 October 2000, 00:36 GMT]
(News Feature) Four more Tamil detainees who were seriously wounded in Wednesday's massacre at the Bindunuwewa detention centre have succumbed to their injuries bringing the death toll to twenty-nine, Joseph Pararajasingham, an MP for the Batticaloa district said. Twenty Tamil detainees amongst those held at the detention centre remained unaccounted for Wednesday night, sources said.
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Thousands mourn slain Jaffna journalist

[TamilNet, Saturday, 21 October 2000, 14:09 GMT]
More than four thousand mourners took part in the funeral of the slain Tamil journalist Nimalrajan Saturday as he was laid to rest in the cemetery of the church of Konjanji Maatha this afternoon in Jaffna town around 3.30 p.m. Posters condemning his killing came up in many parts the peninsula. Black flags were also flown in the town. Meanwhile, in Colombo, the opposition Janata Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) charged that the EPDP was behind the Nimalrajan's killing.
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Police curfew in Batticaloa

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 11 October 2000, 08:41 GMT]
The Sri Lankan Police declared curfew in the Muslim towns of Kattankudy, Eravur and Ottamavadi and in the Batticaloa town Wednesday following clashes between supporters and members of the National Unity Alliance (NUA) and the United National Party.
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TULF loses in Trincomalee, Batticaloa

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 11 October 2000, 08:36 GMT]
Tamils in Trincomalee lost representation in the Sri Lankan parliament for the first time since the island became independent in 1948. Despite decades of state backed Sinhala colonization aimed at altering the demographic complexion of this east coast district, Tamils still form the majority at 36.4 percent of the population. Nevertheless, no Tamil was elected to Parliament in this election.
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No franchise for Mullaithivu Tamils

[TamilNet, Monday, 09 October 2000, 21:10 GMT]
None of the Tamil voters in the Mullaithivu district will be able to vote in elections to Sri Lanka's eleventh Parliament Tuesday 10 October. They have been precluded from the polls due to a decision by the Sri Lankan government not to have any polling booths in the district except one for 996 Sinhalese in Ibbanweva, a state backed settlement in the southern corner of Mullaithivu. "This is tantamount to denying them the exercise of their sovereignty as Sri Lankan citizens through the franchise or, in real terms, disfranchising them" said a political analyst in Colombo Monday asked to comment on the Mullaithivu situation.
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