Thousands of Killinochchi IDPs not paid resettlement assistance

[TamilNet, Friday, 20 February 2004, 15:44 GMT]
About 6,596 resettled families in the Killinochchi district have not been paid any resettlement allowances since the signing of the ceasefire agreement by the government and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, Killinochchi district secretariat sources said.


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TEPS calls on people to identify anti-social elements

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 11 February 2004, 05:42 GMT]
The Tamil Eelam Police Service (TEPS), the police division of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, on Tuesday called on the people of the Jaffna peninsula to identify anti-social elements and root them out, according to the Jaffna-based Tamil language daily, Uthayan.
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SLA gives back houses in Chavakachcheri

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 10 February 2004, 00:51 GMT]
The Sri Lanka army vacated seventy nine houses in two suburbs on the outskirts of Chavakachcheri town in Jaffna this weekend. The military pulled back its forward defense line (FDL) 400 meters to free the houses it has been occupying since 2000. Meanwhile in a move to woo Internally Displaced Persons’ (IDPs) votes in Jaffna for the general elections on 2 April, the EPDP, a paramilitary group operating with the Sri Lankan armed forces in the northeast, Monday claimed responsibility for securing the release of the garrisoned homes in Chavakachcheri’s environs.
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Jaffna IDP protest concluded

[TamilNet, Friday, 06 February 2004, 13:12 GMT]
The fast unto death protest in Chavakachcheri and Tellipalai in Jaffna were concluded Friday after assurances by Tamil National Alliance MPs and a senior official from the Prime Minister’s Office in Colombo. However, several internally displaced persons (IDPs) who took part and supported the protest fast criticized TNA MPs for intervening in the protest for political gain.
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Jaffna IDPs begin fast unto death

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 04 February 2004, 07:18 GMT]
Two groups of persons demanding that they be allowed to resettle in their villages garrisoned by the Sri Lankan armed forces in Jaffna's Thenmaradchi and Valigamam North Divisions began fasting unto death Wednesday Sri Lanka's Independence Day. Twelve Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) began a fast unto death protest in front of the Valigamam North Divisional Secretary's office in Tellipalai from 8 a.m. Wednesday. A group of displaced farmers began a fast unto death in Chavakachcheri town Wednesday morning.
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Displaced Jaffna farmers boycott SLA meeting

[TamilNet, Monday, 02 February 2004, 08:16 GMT]
Farmers’ associations of garrisoned villages in Jaffna’s Thenmaradchi division Monday boycotted a meeting called by the Sri Lanka army to discuss the possibility of permitting some families to resettle in their homes inside its vast high security zone in the region. The military arranged the meeting to diffuse a crisis brewing over a farmer who wants to fast to death from Wednesday unless the army allows him and other displaced families resettle in their garrisoned villages.
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Thamilchelvan deplores Sri Lanka President's 'arbitrary action'

[TamilNet, Monday, 19 January 2004, 10:40 GMT]
The Sri Lankan "governing apparatus that should take forward the peace process with commitment and sufficient strength is in shambles. This no doubt is an imminent threat to the maintenance of the ceasefire with due integrity," said Mr. S. P Thamilchelvan, head of the LTTE’s political division addressing the conference of northeast donors Monday in Kilinochchi. He said that "the arbitrary action" of Sri Lanka’s President "has created problems of vast magnitude vis-à-vis the integrity of the CFA and the progress of the political negotiations."
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Will fast to death says Jaffna refugee

[TamilNet, Sunday, 11 January 2004, 11:28 GMT]
Mr.Sellakili Anandaraja, a refugee in Jaffna whose home and fields are occupied by the Sri Lanka amy said Sunday he would fast to death if he and more than 600 diplaced families in the Thenmaradchi divison of Jaffna are not permitted resettle in their villages before the end of January 2004.
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2003: The year in review

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 31 December 2003, 18:58 GMT]
The widespread optimism on peace that greeted the dawn of 2003 has evaporated and the power struggle between Sri Lanka's Prime Minister and President that threatens the peace process now occupies the center stage of politics in Colombo. High Security Zones (HSZ) in Jaffna continue to deny displaced Tamils their fundamental rights. Colombo's unwillingness and inability to disburse funds stalls development and rehabilitation in NorthEast, as international aid remains blocked, awaiting concrete signs of progress in peace.
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Jaffna GA denies TamilNet report

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 31 December 2003, 11:01 GMT]
In a letter sent to Sri Lanka’s Minister of Rehabilitation, Resettlement and Refugees Jaffna Government Agent (GA) and forwarded to TamilNet "on advise of the Hon. Minister Prof. Jayalath Jeyawardena, MP," the GA, Mr. S. Pathmanathan categorically denied stating that the government of Sri Lanka “had not spent a red cent for rehabilitation and development in Jaffna for the last two years” at a meeting in Chavakachcheri on 27 December. The TamilNet correspondent who covered the meeting and took photographs of the event said he stands by his story.
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NECORD funds village development project in Kanniya

[TamilNet, Saturday, 13 December 2003, 13:25 GMT]
Under the Village Rehabilitation Programme (VRP), Asian Development Bank supported North East Community Restoration Development (NECORD) project is funding reconstruction of abandoned roads and public wells and other infrastructure facilities destroyed in Kanniya, a village located about eight km off the east port town along Trincomalee-Anuradhapura main road, TRO Trincomalee district co-ordinator Mr. K.Mathavarajah said.
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IDPs take part in HR art competition in Trincomalee

[TamilNet, Friday, 12 December 2003, 15:29 GMT]
The four-day celebrations that began on December 10 to mark the Universal Human Rights day in Trincomalee district is to conclude on Saturday (December 13) in Trincomalee town with the Eastern High Court Judge, Mr.S.Paramarajah, as the chief guest. A committee comprising Eastern rehabilitation Organization (ERO), UNICEF, UNHCR, UNDP, Consortium of Humanitarians Agencies, Danish Refugee Council, USAID, Legal Aid Foundation and Human Rights Commission of Sri Lanka, has organized the final event.
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UNICEF funds mine education programme in Trincomalee

[TamilNet, Saturday, 06 December 2003, 17:52 GMT]
"Venpura" (White Pigeon) Technical Institute of Prosthesis in Trincomalee has launched a Mine Risk Education (MRE) programme in twenty villages in the district with the funding of the UNICEF, said its Co-ordinator Mr. M.J.Wilfred.


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Minister lashes out at UNF govt. over IDP’s plight

[TamilNet, Friday, 21 November 2003, 14:40 GMT]
Sri Lanka's Hindu Religious Affairs Minister, Mr. T.Maheswaran, Friday lashed out against his own (United National Front) government that it has not taken any concrete steps to alleviate the suffering of several thousand internally displaced people (IDP) in the Jaffna district for the last two years." IDP are still languishing in the refugee camps and welfare centres with out any future since the signing of the ceasefire agreement," said Mr. Maheswaran participating in the budget debate when it resumed Friday morning, parliamentary sources said.
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Thenmaradchchi IDPs protest against SLA occupation

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 11 November 2003, 14:36 GMT]
About fifty men and women with children who had been displaced in 2000 military operations of the Sri Lanka Army Tuesday morning held a sit in protest in front of the SLA camp located close to the railway gate at Kachchai road in Chavakachcheri area in Thenamaradchchi division in Jaffna district demanding the return of their houses which have been occupied by the soldiers, police said.
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Jaffna islets' IDPs reluctant to return

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 11 November 2003, 11:30 GMT]
Only less than thirty percent of the internally displaced families from the islets of Jaffna district who fled the islets following 1990 military operations by the Sri Lanka Army (SLA) have returned back to their former homes since the signing of the ceasefire agreement by the Government of Sri Lanka (GoSL) and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), according statistics collected by civil authorities.


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Most landmine accidents in Jaffna – UN group

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 11 November 2003, 06:49 GMT]
The United Nations Inter-Agency Working Group on Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) in Colombo said Tuesday that most of the accidents caused by mines and unexploded ordnance (UXO) occurred in Jaffna this year. UNDP supported de-mining began in Jaffna seven years ago. Today there are three international de-mining groups active in the peninsula, including one from the US army. The UNDP continues support. A year ago, the region controlled by the Liberation Tigers in the north had much larger and extensive concentrations of mines, minefields and UXOs than Jaffna.
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"Peace Process absolutely irreversible" - British Don

[TamilNet, Saturday, 08 November 2003, 12:58 GMT]
"Tamil issue has always been a political football in the grounds of the Southern political discourse, but this time around the situation is entirely different. Transparency of talks and the high level of international engagement make the current Peace Process absolutely irreversible," said Sri Lanka expert Prof. Chris Smith, Director of Center for South Asia studies at the International Policy Institute, King's College, London when TamilNet asked him to comment on the recent constitutional crisis, precipitated by Sri Lanka's President Ms.Chandrika Kumaratunge.
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HRC holds inquiry into IDP's complaint

[TamilNet, Monday, 03 November 2003, 19:29 GMT]
A team of the Human Rights Commission of Sri Lanka (HRC) Monday visited the Kuppilan village in the Valigamam north division in Jaffna district and conducted an inquiry into the complaint made by the head of an internally displaced family that he had been refused permission by the Sri Lanka Army (SLA) to resettle in his house which is located six hundred meters outside the boundary of the high security zone, HRC sources said.
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Rotary housing project for IDP's opened in Varothia Nagar

[TamilNet, Sunday, 02 November 2003, 08:26 GMT]
A housing project comprising thirty-five houses constructed at a cost of about 3.46 million rupees for the returnees of internally displaced Tamil families implemented by the Trincomalee Rotary Club with the financial assistance of German Technical Co-operation (GTZ) was declared open Saturday at Varothyanagar, a suburb in Trincomalee town by the Rotary Governor Mr. Gamini Jayawardene.
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