Army intelligence operatives killed in explosion

[TamilNet, Thursday, 15 November 2001, 10:14 GMT]
Three members of the Sri Lanka Army’s military intelligence unit in Batticaloa were killed in an explosion in the high security zone of the eastern town around 10.15 a.m. Thursday. A senior member of the group ‘Vinobha’ (Thambi) was seriously wounded. A cashew nut seller was killed and eight civilians were wounded near Munai Street where the suicide bomb exploded. Shops and schools were closed in the town following the explosion.
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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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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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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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Lies, fronts and ruins

[TamilNet, Friday, 02 November 2001, 11:24 GMT]
((News Feature) Sri Lanka’s President Chandrika Kumaratunga Tuesday accused Human Rights Watch, which has criticised excesses by the Sri Lankan security forces, of “telling lies” and dismissed the largest human rights organization based in the United States as a front for the Liberation Tigers. President Kumaratunga however praised the University Teachers for Human Rights (Jaffna) as “totally independent” and whom she said were “very appreciative” of her government. Kumaratunga’s comments were made in an interview to CNN conducted by Zain Verjee during which the President continued her bitter attack on her main opposition, denied she had conducted a ‘war for peace’ (“we called it a battle for peace. we wanted peace through peace”), and denied there was an economic embargo on Tamil areas – even though Verjee didn’t actually raise the matter.
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Tough time on Hard Talk

[TamilNet, Thursday, 01 November 2001, 15:06 GMT]
(News Feature) Sri Lankan President Chandrika Kumaratunga's public relations blitz in the Western media unexpectedly ran into difficulties Tuesday on the BBC's Hard Talk program hosted by Tim Sebastian. Faced with several embarrassing questions about the human rights situation in the island and the lack of progress in the peace process, President Kumaratunga, struggling to respond, became increasingly defensive and irritated. During the course of the half-hour interview, Kumaratunga said the US State Department's 2001 report on human rights contained "lies," claimed there had been "only one rape in Jaffna" since she came to power, flatly denied there was an economic embargo on Tamil areas ("that is nonsense!"), and blamed rights violations on "mad" policemen. Amid Sebastian's, trademark rapid-fire questions, some exchanges with the President bordered on the farcical.
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"First internal study of LTTE" published

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 24 October 2001, 11:00 GMT]
A new book, The Will to Freedom, released this week, provides the first internal study of two decades of the Liberation Tigers' campaign and its leadership, the publishers said in a statement this week. Written by Adele Balasingham, who has lived and worked in India and Sri Lanka for than twenty years with the LTTE, the 400-page book "will be of interest to all those who want to study the inside story of the Tamil resistance movement," Fairmax Publishing Ltd. said.
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Eight civilians wounded, 2 killed in shelling

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 23 October 2001, 13:46 GMT]
Eight civilians, including an infant, were wounded and two were killed in shelling by the Special Task Force, an elite arm of the Sri Lankan security forces, on the villages of Ambilaanthurai and Thumbankerni, south west of Batticaloa town Tuesday.
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'Lift ban or let us go to Vanni'- Jaffna fishermen

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 23 October 2001, 13:40 GMT]
More than three thousand fishermen and women demonstrated in Pt. Pedro town Tuesday against Sri Lanka Army restrictions on fishing in the seas off the Jaffna peninsula's Vadamaradchi coast. The fishermen demanded that the SLA should either lift the restrictions and ban or allow them to leave Jaffna and to settle in the LTTE controlled Vanni region.
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Grenade attack in Vavuniya

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 23 October 2001, 11:15 GMT]
Three policemen were wounded in a grenade attack by Liberation Tigers at Koomankulam in Vavuniya around 11.30 a.m. Tuesday. The police said two of the attackers were killed and another escaped with injuries when they retaliated.
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STF, SF operation in LTTE held villages in east

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 23 October 2001, 05:59 GMT]
The Special Task Force and Sri Lanka army Special Forces began an operation into areas held by the Liberation Tigers southwest of Batticaloa town from the early hours of morning Tuesday. Two main groups of Sri Lankan security forces moved into the villages of Palugamam, Periyaporathivu, Kovitporathivu and Munaithivu, sources said. A timber shed was set on fire amid sporadic gunfire in areas which the STF and SF entered this morning. No major confrontation was reported until noon.
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Sea battle off Mullaithivu

[TamilNet, Sunday, 21 October 2001, 21:44 GMT]
A sea battle broke out in the seas off Mullaithivu in the north-east of Sri Lanka when Sea Tigers engaged Sri Lanka Navy (SLN) patrol boats, Sunday morning, the Voice of Tigers radio said this evening. Two SLN crafts were damaged and five LTTE members died in the battle, the radio said.
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Tamil parties sign MOU

[TamilNet, Saturday, 20 October 2001, 17:42 GMT]
Leaders of the Tamil parties' alliance Saturday signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to contest the forthcoming general election under one symbol. Mr.R.Sampanthan on behalf of Tamil United Liberation Front (TULF), Mr.N.Kumarakuruparan on behalf of All Ceylon Tamil Congress (ACTC), Mr.N.Sri Kantha on behalf of Tamil Eelam Liberation Organization (TELO) and Mr.Suresh Premachandran of behalf of Eelam Peoples' Revolutionary Liberation Front (EPRLF-Suresh wing) have signed the MOU.
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Jaffna journalist's murder investigation said abandoned

[TamilNet, Friday, 19 October 2001, 04:45 GMT]
In an open letter Friday to Sri Lanka's President Chandrika Kumaratunga, drafted by the Free Media Movement, the Sri Lanka Tamil Media Alliance and the international press freedom watchdog Reporters Sans Frontières (RSF), more than 200 journalists, media workers, media organisations, trade unions, international and local NGOs, academics, protested at the lack of progress in the inquiry of the brutal murder of Jaffna journalist Mylvaganam Nimalarajan on 19 October last year.
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Claymore blast in LTTE held region

[TamilNet, Thursday, 18 October 2001, 19:32 GMT]
A civilian was injured in a claymore mine blast in Kadukkamunai, a village in the western hinterland of the Batticaloa district which is under the control of the Liberation Tigers around 11.45 a.m. Thursday. The claymore was hidden in a culvert on the interior road and was aimed at a vehicle of the LTTE which had passed the point seconds before the blast, according to residents of Kadukkamunai who came to the eastern town Thursday evening.
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Two killed in Nagar Kovil

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 09 October 2001, 10:11 GMT]
Two Sri Lanka army soldiers was killed and at least four were wounded in an engagement with the Liberation Tigers ahead of the Forward Defence Line in Nagar Kovil on Jaffna’s southeastern coast Tuesday morning. The SLA and the LTTE exchanged artillery and mortar fire from 5 a.m. to 6 a.m. The Tigers directed mortar fire on the Nagar Kovil SLA garrison and the military radar station in Kottodai.
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TULF to back no-confidence motion

[TamilNet, Sunday, 07 October 2001, 20:39 GMT]
The Tamil United Liberation Front (TULF) Sunday unanimously decided to extend its support to the no-confidence motion moved by the main opposition United National Party against the People's Alliance (PA) Government. The TULF further decided to move an amendment to the main no-confidence motion of the UNP which reads "This House declares that it has no confidence in the Government since it is demonstrably clear that it cannot solve the pressing problems of the country and its people".
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Tigers attack SLA ambush group

[TamilNet, Sunday, 07 October 2001, 06:53 GMT]
A Sri Lanka army soldier was killed and two were wounded in a counter ambush by the Liberation Tigers at Miyankulam junction on the Batticaloa-Colombo highway Saturday night around 11 p.m. military sources in the eastern town said. The soldiers were in an ambush party that had set out from the Miyankulam SLA camp to interdict a crossing point used by the Liberation Tigers. The camp is one of the eight military detachments that guard A 16 – the SLA’s Main Supply Route to the district.
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