UNP, JVP to vote against extension of emergency

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 03 July 2001, 10:52 GMT]
Sri Lanka's main opposition, the United National Party Tuesday decided to vote against the motion on extending state of emergency which will be taken up for voting on Friday. "If the government holds the majority power in Parliament as repeatedly claimed by the Prime Minister, this is the best opportunity to prove it and show the strength of the government by ensuring the passage of the Emergency Regulations through Parliament" the parliamentary group of the UNP said in statement issued in this regard. Meanwhile the radical Marxist Janata Vimukthi Peramuna that has 10 MPs in the parliament said it will also vote against the motion.
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PA denies LTTE banned under PTA

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 03 July 2001, 02:37 GMT]
The Sri Lankan Government categorically stated Monday that “the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam was banned under the Emergency Regulations (ER) on January 27, 1998”. The SL Government denied news reports that “LTTE was banned under the Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA)”. The Peoples Alliance Government argues that if the State of Emergency were allowed to lapse, the ban on the LTTE would automatically be revoked and that the Sri Lankan security forces would be deprived of the legal basis for carrying out their duties in the course of war.
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Air strikes will "irreparably damage" peace process -LTTE

[TamilNet, Monday, 02 July 2001, 08:29 GMT]
The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in an official statement issued from its headquarters in Vanni, northern Sri Lanka today, warned the Government of Sri Lanka that peace initiatives would be irreparably damaged if it continued with its intense aerial and artillery bombardment against the LTTE positions in Jaffna. Describing the air strikes as 'provocative aggression and calculated escalation', the LTTE accused the Kumaratunga regime of seeking desperate measures to mobilise the support of Sinhala nationalist forces with the purpose of overcoming the crisis brought by the no-confidence motion.
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Salli woman challenges case transfer

[TamilNet, Friday, 29 June 2001, 19:15 GMT]
The Colombo High Court Friday fixed the argument in the transfer application filed by the Commanding Officer of the Sri Lanka Navy detachment in Nilaveli, the first respondent in the Salli Habeas Corpus Application Case, for July 26. Nilaveli is 12 kilometres north of Trincomalee. Mr.Jeyakili was arrested by the Navy while fishing in the sea with two colleagues on 25 February 2000. The Navy released Mr. Jeyakili's colleagues two days later, but denied that it had arrested him. The fisherman is believed killed.
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Driver, schoolboy missing in Mannar

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 26 June 2001, 02:04 GMT]
The Mannar Citizens’ Committee Monday received four complaints about two disappearances and two arrests. Arumugam Thevarajah, 40, a driver who went to the Sri Lanka Army's pass office in Mannar town on 18 June to obtain a temporary resident permit to stay in the suburb of Panankattikottu, did not return home and is missing since then, according to a complaint lodged by his sister Kanapathipillai Thevanayagi. A fifteen-year-old student in Mannar has also been reported missing since 13 June. Relatives who fear that he might have been arrested and detained have sought the Citizens’ Committee’s assistance to trace him.
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Girl raped in Police checkpoint

[TamilNet, Monday, 25 June 2001, 15:23 GMT]
Three Policemen on duty at a checkpoint in downtown Colombo were arrested Monday for gang raping a girl in the early hours of the morning on Sunday. The girl was returning from work with a boy when she was stopped at the Police checkpoint near the Central Theatre in Maradana in downtown Colombo around 4.45 a.m. The Policemen had allegedly gang raped the girl after forcing her inside their checkpoint by threatening her that they would arrest and detain her on suspicion that she is a spy of the Liberation Tigers if she refused to get into the bunker. Any member of the Sri Lankan security forces regardless of his/her rank can arrest anyone if she/he has “reasonable ground” to suspect that the person has links with the Liberation Tigers under the provisions of the Emergency Regulations (18.1).
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Tigers deny shutting down civilian crossing

[TamilNet, Monday, 25 June 2001, 11:50 GMT]
The Voice of Tigers radio said in its morning news broadcast Monday that the Liberation Tigers denied a Sri Lanka army report that they had closed the main crossing point to the Vanni. No lorries from the Vanni came to the crossing point for civilians and international humanitarian agencies at Piramanaalankulam, 28 kilometres west of Vavuniya, on Saturday. The SLA Saturday issued a statement that claimed the lorries had not come because the LTTE had closed the crossing. “We are not aware of any disruption in the normal operation of the Piramanaalankulam checkpoint. The question of lorries coming from or going to the Vanni is a matter that comes totally under the purview of the Government Agent, not us”, the press officer of the ICRC, Mr. Harasha Gunawardene, told Tamilnet Monday, referring to the SLA statement which quoted the ICRC as saying no lorries had come from the Vanni on Saturday.
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LTTE claymore kills seven SLA in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Monday, 25 June 2001, 09:09 GMT]
Seven soldiers were killed and twenty-two injured when a Sri Lanka army truck was hit by a claymore mine set off by the Liberation Tigers in Madduvil, about 25 kilometres east of Jaffna town around 1.20 p.m. Monday, military sources in the peninsula said. Casualties could rise as several soldiers in the truck were wounded seriously, they said.
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SLN patrol boat captured - Mutur LTTE

[TamilNet, Saturday, 23 June 2001, 14:47 GMT]
The Liberation Tigers said Saturday that they captured a patrol boat from the Sri Lanka Navy Friday morning in a surprise attack in the sea off the Sampur coast, south of Trincomalee. The LTTE, in press note issued in Mutur Saturday, said that the Sea Tigers captured a grenade launcher, an outboard motor and a communication set from the SLN in the sea attack. SLN casualties are not known, the press note added. Sampur is controlled by the Liberation Tigers. Meanwhile, the TamilNet correspondent in Mutur said that Sri Lanka Navy gunboats opened fire on the Sampur village Saturday morning. Two civilians were wounded and a school and several houses were damaged in the SLN shelling, he said.
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Two youths shot dead in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Friday, 22 June 2001, 20:29 GMT]
Two youths were shot dead by Sri Lanka Army (SLA) soldiers near Thankaaval Pillayar temple in Nallur, a suburb of Jaffna town, around 4 p.m. Friday. The army said they were members of the Liberation Tigers. The area was sealed off and thoroughly searched by the soldiers following the incident.
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Tamil parties sign no confidence motion

[TamilNet, Thursday, 21 June 2001, 13:28 GMT]
Three Tamil parties in Sri Lanka’s Parliament signed the no confidence motion against the ruling People’s Alliance government in Sri Lanka Thursday. The Tamil United Liberation Front, the Tamil Eelam Liberation Organisation and the All Ceylon Tamil Congress which together have nine seats in the legislature. However, a spokesman for the radical Marxist Janata Vimukthi Peramuna which has ten seats, and hence holds the key to the numbers manoeuvring in the Sri Lankan Parliament, said Thursday that it would announce its decision on Saturday.
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Batticaloa gets 'Writing on the wall'

[TamilNet, Sunday, 17 June 2001, 16:19 GMT]
Sri Lanka army soldiers nonchalantly pass by the large writings on the wall in Vathaarumoolai, 19 kilometres north of Batticaloa. The attitude surprises visitors and locals alike because these are larger than life graffiti of the Liberation Tigers which began appearing since early last month in many parts of the Batticaloa district's coastal region which is controlled by the Sri Lankan security forces. Some have been sprayed very close to army camps on Batticaloa coastal highway.
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Claymore kills LTTE's eastern political leader

[TamilNet, Friday, 15 June 2001, 21:21 GMT]
The leader of the political wing of the Liberation Tigers for the Batticaloa and Ampara district was killed in a claymore mine blast Thursday around 11.30 a.m. at Vaathakkalmadu in Nallathanni Odai, about 36 kilometres south west of Batticaloa, Sri Lanka army sources in the eastern town said. They claimed that the Batticaloa-Ampara district's political wing leader, Nizaam, was killed when the claymore blast hit the motorbike on which he was riding with a colleague Thursday morning.
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Solheim's down-grading obstacle to talks - MP

[TamilNet, Thursday, 14 June 2001, 21:15 GMT]
The Sri Lankan government's efforts to downgrade the role of Norway's special envoy, Erik Solheim, has now become a major obstacle to current peace initative, an MP of the main opposition United National Party (UNP) said Wednesday. "This will further strain the peace process," said Alisagir Moulana, a Muslim Parliamentarian for the Batticaloa District.
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Damage control as peace process hits the rocks

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 12 June 2001, 05:15 GMT]
(News Feature) The bi-lateral decision by Norway and Sri Lanka last Thursday, at the latter's insistence, to reduce the prominence of Oslo's peace envoy, Erik Solheim, has delivered an unexpected and severe blow to the Liberation TigersÇ confidence in the Norwegian initiative, political analysts said Monday. Sri Lanka's state-media Monday strove to give the impression that the process was still on track, but the LTTE's strongly worded statement Sunday and sentiments being expressed by Tamil politicians and media emphasised the depth of the crisis, they said.
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LTTE "displeasure" over "unilateral" changes in facilitator's role

[TamilNet, Sunday, 10 June 2001, 08:15 GMT]
The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam Sunday expressed its "displeasure" over what it said was Sri Lanka's "unilateral initiative to change the role and function of the Norwegian peace envoy, Erik Solheim." The LTTE said the government had sought to remove Solheim because of his "impeccable neutrality, a rare quality that was viewed with suspicion and apprehension in Sri Lankan political discourse." In a strongly worded statement from its Vanni headquarters, the movement also said "the facilitatory process in peace making is not an exercise in inter-governmental relations; it involves tripartite relations between the facilitator and the parties in conflict," and observed that "[Norway's] bi-lateral decision with the government of Sri Lanka, circumventing the other party in conflict entails a breach of protocol and neutrality."
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Vavuniya quota fuels less vehicles, more corruption

[TamilNet, Friday, 08 June 2001, 10:24 GMT]
The restrictions on the issue of fuel to the public in the Sri Lanka army controlled areas of the Vavuniya region is contradictory to the principles of governance and therefore should be removed forthwith, said the Union of Christian Churches in Vavuniya in a letter addressed to Major General S.H.Shantha Kottegoda, Commander of the Security Forces in Vanni this week.
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Four LTTE casualties

[TamilNet, Thursday, 07 June 2001, 21:02 GMT]
Three members of the Liberation Tigers were killed in a confrontation with Sri Lanka Army soldiers at Manal Aaru on Wednesday, the Voice of Tigers radio said this evening. A member of the LTTE's border force died in a confrontation in the Muhamaalai area in the southern sector of the Jaffna peninsula on Thursday the radio added.
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SLA bid to relocate Trinco IDPs opposed

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 06 June 2001, 06:07 GMT]
Sri Lankan security forces told government officials in Trincomalee to transfer over 1500 internally displaced Tamil persons from Alles Garden refugee camp to Kuchchaveli, 38 kilometres north of Trincomalee town. "The security forces in Trincomalee have taken this step to ensure the security of army and navy camps in the area", a government official said.
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ICRC transfers bodies of LTTE killed by STF

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 05 June 2001, 11:35 GMT]
The bodies of 11 Liberation Tigers who were killed Monday in an attack by Special Task Force commandos in Kanjikudichcha Aaru, 84 kilometres south of Batticaloa, were handed over to the ICRC Tuesday Mr.Harasha Gunawardene, the press officer of the ICRC in Colombo told Tamilnet. All the bodies were transferred to the LTTE today, he said. He added that the body of a Tiger trooper was handed over to the LTTE Monday.
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