Religious delegation visits Madhu, meets LTTE

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 20 February 2001, 03:35 GMT]
A 60-member inter-religious delegation comprising 36 Buddhist monks, two Bishops and several catholic and muslim priests visited Madhu in the LTTE held Vanni Monday, sources said. The visit was arranged by the northeast Bishops Association.
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Magistrate orders investigation into cyanide death

[TamilNet, Monday, 19 February 2001, 20:42 GMT]
The Vavuniya Magistrate on Monday instructed the Police to conduct investigations into the death of a 25 year-old woman to ascertain how she had got cyanide capsule after being brought to the Sri Lanka Army's Brigade Headquarters in Vavuniya. Jeyanthi Veerasingham entered Vavuniya on February 16 from the LTTE controlled Vanni region. She was summoned to army detachment at Sanasa transit camp for an inquiry, on the following day. Later, the army handed over her body to the Vavuniya hospital claiming that she had committed suicide by swallowing cyanide.
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SLA exhorts against memorandum, arrests two

[TamilNet, Saturday, 17 February 2001, 09:29 GMT]
The Sri Lanka army exhorted the people of Jaffna over loud hailers Saturday not to put their signatures on the memorandum by students of the Jaffna University urging the British government not to ban the Liberation Tigers and stymie the peace process in Sri Lanka. Meanwhile, the SLA arrested two Jaffna University students who were collecting signatures for the memorandum at Navindil, near Vathiri junction, 23 kilometres northeast of Jaffna, around 10.30 a.m. Saturday morning. The two students have been taken to the Udupiddy SLA camp for interrogation, a University official said.
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Demonstration against British ban

[TamilNet, Friday, 16 February 2001, 12:53 GMT]
A big demonstration was held in Kokkadichcholai in the Batticaloa district on Friday urging the British government not to proscribe the Liberation Tigers under the Terrorism Act and demanding the Sri Lankan government to begin negotiations with the Tigers. The protesters also burnt effigies of Sri Lankan president Chandrika Kumaratunga, Prime MinisterRatansiri Wickremanayake, Deputy Defence Minister Anuruddha Ratwatte and Foreign Minister Luxman Kadirgamar said sources.
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US security officials, ambassador visit Batticaloa

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 14 February 2001, 20:37 GMT]
The US ambassador for Sri Lanka, Ashley Wills, visited Batticaloa Wednesday with the mission’s Defence Attaché and its Regional Security Officer. The US embassy delegation held a two-hour discussion with SLA officers at the headquarters of the 23-3 brigade in Batticaloa town about the security situation in the district. The delegation also met Air Force and Police officers of the region thereafter. The ambassador later called on Mr. Joseph Pararajasingham, Tamil United Liberation Front MP for Batticaloa. Security was tightened in places the US delegation was expected to visit in the town.
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Student signature campaign suspended

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 14 February 2001, 12:02 GMT]
A signature campaign, organised by the students of Vavuniya campus of Jaffna University, appealing to the British Government not to proscribe the Liberation Tigers under the Terrorism Act was suspended Wednesday morning following intervention by the Sri Lanka Army (SLA) and Police said student sources. The police detained three students who were collecting signatures around 10.30 a.m. Wednesday and confiscated a list containing about 500 signatures, the sources said.
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British ban will scuttle peace process - LTTE

[TamilNet, Monday, 12 February 2001, 09:19 GMT]
The proscription of the Liberation Tigers by Britain would “seriously undermine” the ongoing Norwegian peace initiative, the LTTE’s chief negotiator, Anton Balasingham said this week in an interview to the Tamil Guardian newspaper. “A serious indictment of one party by Britain as ‘terrorists’ at this stage would be considered as a partisan intervention in Sri Lanka’s ethnic conflict and therefore destroy trust in the Norwegian peace initiative,” Balasingham told the London based weekly.
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Jaffna, Batticaloa students lobby against UK ban

[TamilNet, Friday, 09 February 2001, 15:23 GMT]
Jaffna university students have organised a signature-campaign to urge the British Government not to proscribe the Liberation Tigers under its new anti-terrorism legislature, said student sources. The campaign, which began on Friday, is a part of 'Pongu Thamil' (Tamil Upsurge), the sources said.
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Peace hopes dim as Sri Lanka hardens stance

[TamilNet, Monday, 05 February 2001, 22:43 GMT]
(News Feature) Sri Lanka's President Chandrika Kumaratunge hardened her stance on the island's ethnic conflict Sunday, dismissing the Liberation Tigers' extended unilateral ceasefire as "meaningless" and insisting the war would only be stopped when negotiations "progressed satisfactorily," dashing hopes amongst Tamil political parties of possible peace talks between the government and the LTTE.
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SLA tenders qualified apology as officer retires

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 31 January 2001, 21:30 GMT]
The Sri Lanka army in Batticaloa town Wednesday tendered a qualified public apology for massacring hundreds innocent civilians of this eastern district in the past in a handbill and over loud hailers. The SLA handbill, among other things, states "on some occasions people had to be murdered on the orders of certain commanders".
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Tigers "already implementing" Norway's MOU

[TamilNet, Monday, 29 January 2001, 20:30 GMT]
The Norwegian peace envoy Erik Solheim met the Liberation Tigers' chief negotiator, Anton Balasingham in London Monday prior to his visit to Sri Lanka, sources close to the LTTE said. Amongst other matters, Mr. Solheim had also discussed Norway's proposed memorandum of understanding to de-escalate the conflict, they said. The LTTE views the MOU positively, but would sign it only if Sri Lanka also accepted its part in it, Balasingham had told Solheim according to the sources.
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Colombo rejects cease-fire, Tamil coalition disappointed

[TamilNet, Friday, 26 January 2001, 18:57 GMT]
"If the government is only interested in pursuing the war against all the Tamil people and in imposing a military solution on them, then let it say so openly. That the Liberation Tigers have extended their cease-fire for another month is a political challenge for the Sri Lankan government. In this circumstance we cannot continue to believe that we can get a political solution from the Sri Lankan government" said Mr. N. Sri Kantha, a senior spokes person for the coalition of eleven Tamil parties in Colombo, Friday, reacting to Colombo categorically rejecting the cease-fire by the Liberation Tigers, which they extended for another month this week.
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Black bands in Batticaloa University for ceasefire, self-determination

[TamilNet, Thursday, 25 January 2001, 15:03 GMT]
Students and teachers of the Eastern University in Batticaloa wore black bands on their arms and observed five minutes of silence at 12 noon Thursday to urge the Sri Lankan government to recognize the Tamil people's right of self determination and to reciprocate the extended unilateral ceasefire declared by the Liberation Tigers.
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PA not capable of resolving conflict -Tamil coalition

[TamilNet, Thursday, 25 January 2001, 07:32 GMT]
"Tamil parties firmly believe that Peoples Alliance (PA) Government is not capable of bringing the ethnic conflict to an end. That is why we have formed a coalition to urge the international community to actively join the peace efforts by pressuring the Sri Lankan Government to stop fighting and start negotiations with the Liberation Tigers," said the representatives of Tamil parties during a meeting with the Swedish Ambassador held in Colombo on Wednesday.
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Tigers extend unilateral ceasefire

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 23 January 2001, 12:41 GMT]
(CORRECTION) The Liberation Tigers said Tuesday they would extend their unilateral ceasefire by another month, and called on the international community to persuade Sri Lanka to "reciprocate favourably and resume negotiations in a cordial atmosphere of peace and normalcy." The LTTE's unilateral ceasefire was due to expire Wednesday night. The Tigers said they had made the decision "in conformity with the collective will of the Tamil nation which demands peace and also in compliance with the wish of the international community which pleads for a peaceful means of resolving the conflict."
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ICRC outlines war zone activities

[TamilNet, Sunday, 21 January 2001, 19:49 GMT]
The International Committee of the Red Cross transported 3807 patients by ship from Jaffna to Trincomalee and took 1061.89 metric tons of drugs and postal bags to the northern peninsula in 2000, according to the annual report of the humanitarian organisation. Two ships, the Java Gulf and the Java Gold, ply between Jaffna and Trincomalee under the ICRC flag, sustaining a lifeline to the debilitated and chronically ill supplied health service in the war torn peninsula. Briefing journalists in Batticaloa Sunday, the ICRC's press officer, Mr. Harasha Gunawardana, said that his organisation had transferred the bodies of 270 Liberation Tigers and those of 209 Sri Lanka army soldiers killed in the war during 2000.
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Solheim to meet Balasingham

[TamilNet, Sunday, 21 January 2001, 18:48 GMT]
The Norwegian government, the official peace facilitator in the Sri Lankan conflict, is renewing efforts to persuade the government and the Liberation tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) to avoid actions which might escalate the present hostilities into renewed all out war, thereby impairing Oslo’s ongoing peace initiative, diplomatic sources in Colombo said Sunday.
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Uthayan journalist interrogated

[TamilNet, Saturday, 20 January 2001, 11:21 GMT]
Sri Lankan police on Saturday interrogated sub-editor of the Jaffna based Tamil daily 'Uthayan' regarding an interview with the LTTE's chief negotiator and political advisor Mr.Anton Balasingham which appeared on Friday. The journalist, Mr.Vithyatharan was interrogated for nearly two hours at his office said sources.
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Embargo crippling life in Vanni-Bishop

[TamilNet, Friday, 19 January 2001, 20:37 GMT]
"The people in the Vanni expressed disappointment that the Sri Lankan government talks about peace only when it has to face an election and that once in power it seeks to solve the problem only by military means" said the Bishop of the Mannar diocese of the Catholic Church, Rt. Rev. Rayappu Joseph, on returning from a five day visit to the northern region controlled by the Liberation Tigers. The displaced civilians of the Vanni receive only 25 percent of the relief due to them from the government and most people there are unable to make a living or ply their trade because of the continuing economic embargo on the region, according to the Bishop.
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Call for peace hartal in Batticaloa

[TamilNet, Friday, 19 January 2001, 19:58 GMT]
The Independent Students' Union (ISF) in Batticaloa Friday called on people to observe a one-day hartal on Saturday in the eastern town in support of the campaign by Jaffna University staff and students and to urge the Sri Lankan government to reciprocate the Liberation Tigers' ongoing unilateral cease-fire. The call for hartal coincides with a musical show organised by the Sri Lanka Army said sources.
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