Sri Lanka tourism awaits peace dividend

[TamilNet, Monday, 17 June 2002, 09:18 GMT]
Tourist arrivals in Sri Lanka have not shown any significant increase despite the signing of the ceasefire agreement between the government and the Liberation Tigers, Tourism Minister Gamini Lokuge told The Sunday Leader.
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LTTE opens third office in Ampara

[TamilNet, Saturday, 15 June 2002, 11:39 GMT]
The Liberation Tigers' third political office in the Ampara district began work last week, press reports said. The new office in Kalmunai, located near the Fatima college on the Kalmunai-Batticaloa main road, was inauguarated Friday last week, the Virakesari reported on Tuesday.
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Military harassment continues in east

[TamilNet, Saturday, 15 June 2002, 11:30 GMT]
Police personnel manning the checkpoint in Kaddaiparicchhan, Muttur in the Trincomalee district have again started harassing Tamil youths, local press reports said. People traveling from Muttur East are stopped and questioned at the checkpoint and those not carrying sufficient identification are barred from crossing, the Uthayan reported last week.
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Navy should completely move out of Thiriyai - Sampanthan

[TamilNet, Thursday, 13 June 2002, 22:33 GMT]
"The Sri Lanka Navy should vacate Thiryai village completely, enabling the displaced Tamil families to resettle in the area. No resettlement or rehabilitation is possible with the presence of a large number of SLN personnel in the village," said Mr.R.Sampanthan, Trincomalee district parliamentarian, speaking at a conference held Wednesday evening at the office of the Kuchchaveli Divisional Secretariat.
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'Just solution will end armed struggle'

[TamilNet, Thursday, 13 June 2002, 14:10 GMT]
The Liberation Tigers are committed to the ceasefire agreement with the Sri Lankan government and will honour its terms and conditions, but must remain strong until the rights of the Tamil people have been secured, a senior LTTE commander said Monday.
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Navy blocks resettlement of Tamil families in Thiriyai

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 12 June 2002, 21:41 GMT]
The Sri Lanka Navy Wednesday refused permission to a group of displaced Tamil families to enter their destroyed village, Thiriyai- a Tamil village about 42 km north of Trincomalee town- to make preliminary arrangements for their resettlement.
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Amnesty to meet LTTE in Vanni

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 12 June 2002, 11:49 GMT]
Amnesty International will, for the first time, meet the leadership of the Liberation Tigers during a visit to Sri Lanka this week, the London based human rights group said Wednesday. “[The delegates] will travel to the Vanni to meet with the LTTE leadership during the first week and then return to Colombo to hold meetings with the new Sri Lankan government,” Amnesty said in a statement.
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Fury after worship is blocked

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 11 June 2002, 06:22 GMT]
Devotees who were prevented from travelling through a Sri Lanka army checkpoint in Omanthai staged an impromptu protest opposite the offices of the International Committee of Red Cross Monday. Over three hundred people were denied passage through the checkpoint after 1 pm for the annual Pongal festival at the Nagathambiran temple in Puthur.
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"New fishing regulations breach cease-fire agreement" - SLMC MP

[TamilNet, Monday, 10 June 2002, 17:03 GMT]
"The Sri Lanka government's gazette notification of the fishing restriction issued last month is a clear breach of the cease-fire agreement the government signed with the Liberation Tigers," said Mr.K.M.Thowfeek, Sri Lanka Muslim Congress parliamentarian for the Trincomalee district at a discussion organised by the Trincomalee Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission (SLMM) held at the Kinniya divisional secretariat Monday morning.
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‘SLA constructions undermine truce’

[TamilNet, Saturday, 08 June 2002, 18:04 GMT]
The construction of new camps and bunkers by the Sri Lankan military in Jaffna was undermining the restoration of normalcy and violated the spirit of the ceasefire agreement between the LTTE an the government, the head of the Liberation Tigers' political section in the northern peninsula, Mr. T. Ilamparithi, told a press briefing Saturday.
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Prohibition on unauthorised felling of treess

[TamilNet, Saturday, 08 June 2002, 09:29 GMT]
A notice prohibiting the unauthorized felling of trees in the north and east of Sri Lanka was issued by the Tamil Eelam Forest Conservation Unit of the Liberation Tigers on June 5, to coincide with World Environment Day (WED). Disciplinary action would be taken against violators, a notice published in the Vanni Wednesday said.
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‘LTTE committed to ceasefire’

[TamilNet, Friday, 07 June 2002, 22:20 GMT]
The Liberation Tigers will fully implement the ceasefire agreement between themselves and the Sri Lankan government and are determined to ensure the truce does not fail, a senior member of the LTTE’s political division in Jaffna told a protest rally by students in the northern peninsula Wednesday , according to local press reports.
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Thamilchelvan, Tigers pay homage to 'Siva'

[TamilNet, Friday, 07 June 2002, 16:44 GMT]
The body of Mr. Murugesu Sivasithambaram, the leader of the Tamil United Liberation Front, was taken to Kilinochchi Friday afternoon. The head of the LTTE's political division Mr.S.P.Thamilchelvan and other members of the organisation paid their last respects to 'Siva' at the Thooyavan College for Political Studies where the cortege lay this afternoon for homage by the public.
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Development Forum awaits 'urgent change'

[TamilNet, Thursday, 06 June 2002, 23:54 GMT]
(News Feature) The Sri Lankan government needs to move faster in securing peace and implementing economic reforms, the Vice President of the World Bank's South Asia region, Mieko Nishimizu, said Thursday in her concluding statement to the Sri Lanka Development Forum meeting in Colombo.
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Youths continue to face STF threats

[TamilNet, Thursday, 06 June 2002, 18:06 GMT]
The four Tamil youths from Karaithivu whose arrest and vicious assault by the Special Task Force last Wednesday drew criticism from ceasefire monitors are said to have received new threats from the police commandos. Fresh complaints in this regard have been lodged with the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission in Ampara, officials said.
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Tamil Eelam police celebrate anniversary

[TamilNet, Thursday, 06 June 2002, 16:45 GMT]
The Tamil Eelam Police Service (TEPS) held a sports tournament at the Malathi Stadium in Puthukkudiyiruppu, Mullaitivu as part of the celebrations of the tenth anniversary of its formation. In his address, the head of the TEPS, Mr. P. Nadesan, saluted the service’s exemplary performance during the past decade, which he said had been rendered amidst difficult conditions of embargo and equipment shortage.
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'Wont fall for provocations to break truce' - Karikalan

[TamilNet, Thursday, 06 June 2002, 16:28 GMT]
"The power of our people is greater than the power of the gun. We have come into areas controlled by the Sri Lanka army because we trust the might of the Tamil masses. The commandos of the Special Task Force are telling our people to make coffins when the whole world is exhorting all of us to make peace. In truth, the STF is trying to bury the peace process in those coffins," said Mr. Karikalan, a senior official of the LTTE's political division, addressing a rally of more than five thousand students in Thambiluvil, 76 kilometres south of Batticaloa, Thursday.
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Tamil students' rallies, protests in Northeast

[TamilNet, Thursday, 06 June 2002, 13:27 GMT]
Thousands of students in Jaffna, Vavuniya, Mannar, Trincomalee, Batticaloa and Amparai held rallies Thursday to observe the Tamil Students’ Upsurge Day, protesting against decades of discrimination by Colombo, bombing of schools, chronic dearth of teachers, classrooms, teaching and science equipment, arrest and detention of schoolchildren, and the presence of Sri Lankan security forces in their schools. Student leaders who addressed the rallies demanded that Tamil students too be granted equal opportunities in education by Colombo, denied them for more than three decades under partisan education schemes.
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Monitors say Navy restrictions violate truce

[TamilNet, Thursday, 06 June 2002, 00:19 GMT]
The Sri Lankan government’s gazette notification of fishing restrictions issued last week under the Prevention of Terrorism Act conflicts with the provisions of the ceasefire agreement the government signed with the Liberation Tigers, press reports Thursday quoted international truce monitors as saying.
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LTTE ban to go ten days before Thailand talks - PM

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 05 June 2002, 11:48 GMT]
The Sri Lankan Prime Minister Mr. Ranil Wickremasinghe Wednesday assured the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) that the ban on the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) will be removed ten days ahead of the commencement of the peace talks in Thailand. The Prime Minister met a delegation of the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) for a discussion on the peace process held Wednesday morning at his office in the parliament.
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