Colombo to recruit 1600 for STF

[TamilNet, Friday, 21 June 2002, 17:50 GMT]
Sri Lanka's Minister for Interior, Mr. John Amaratunga, told troops frontline in Mannar Thursday that his government will recruit 1600 to the Special Task Force (STF), the elite counter insurgency arm of the island's military. Speaking among STF commandos and military trained Policemen manning forward defences on the border separating the Vanni region held by the Liberation Tigers at Kannatti, Mr. Amaratunga dismissed rumours that Colombo intends to downsize the elite counter insurgency force.
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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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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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STF disruptions continue in southeast

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 05 June 2002, 19:28 GMT]
Commandos of the Special Task Force, the elite counter insurgency arm of the Sri Lankan security forces, harassed and tortured a youth who went to get medicine in the Thirukkovil District Hospital in the Amparai district, according to a complaint taken up the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission (SLMM) this week. The STF has been encamped in the premises of the district hospital in Thirukkovil, the large Tamil village on Sri Lankaís southeastern coast, for more than 17 years, despite protests by residents and local human rights activists.
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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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Buddhist monk wants STF out of school

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 04 June 2002, 17:52 GMT]
The Ven. Miragalle Dharmalankara Thero, the principal of a Sinhala school in the Ampara district, said Tuesday he has complained to the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission (SLMM) that the Special Task Force, an elite counter insurgency unit of the Sri Lankan security forces, should vacate his school. "The Sri Lanka army occupied my school in 1987. Then the STF moved in. I have been requesting all the government that came to power since 1987 to pull out the troops from the school. But nothing was done. This is why I am complaining to SLLM now. It is a great wrong perpetrated on the children of this school. If anyone says that the troops should remain in the school, then his head has to be examined," the priest said in a letter faxed to the press in Batticaloa Tuesday.
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SLA holds Valaichchenai temples

[TamilNet, Sunday, 02 June 2002, 11:39 GMT]
The Sri Lanka armed forces have not yet vacated several places of worship they are occupying in the Valaichchenai area, 32 kms north of Batticaloa district as stipulated in the ceasefire agreement signed between the government the Liberation Tigers, residents said.
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SLMM frees arrested youths

[TamilNet, Saturday, 01 June 2002, 11:35 GMT]
Four Tamil youths arrested by the Special Task Force (STF) and subsequently released without charge have protested their abductions to the Sri Lankan Monitoring Mission (SLMM) office in Ampara, press reports said. The youths were released after the intervention of an SLMM official.
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Truce monitors protest military conduct

[TamilNet, Saturday, 01 June 2002, 10:38 GMT]
(News Feature) Tensions between the Sri Lankan armed forces and local residents increased this weekend in the Batticaloa and Amparai districts following new incidents of violence and harassment by the military, reports said Saturday. The vicious assaults of four fishermen by police commandos prompted the head of the local ceasefire monitors' head to plead with the security forces "to desist from violating the ceasefire and arresting and torturing innocent youths under various pretexts," press reports said.
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Sri Lankan troops ‘enter LTTE territory’

[TamilNet, Thursday, 30 May 2002, 20:55 GMT]
Sri Lanka Army (SLA) soldiers crossed into territory held by the Liberation Tigers in Batticaloa on May 24, violating the terms of the permanent ceasefire, press reports said Thursday. LTTE officials have lodged a complaint with the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission (SLMM) the reports added.
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STF ‘deliberately’ violated ceasefire - SLMM

[TamilNet, Thursday, 30 May 2002, 20:13 GMT]
The arrest and torture of a member of the Liberation Tigers by the elite Special Task Force (STF) constituted a deliberate breach of the permanent ceasefire according to the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission (SLMM), as the troops had penetrated over one kilometre into LTTE-held territory to carry out the attack.
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'S.L Security forces still in temples' - Hindu body

[TamilNet, Sunday, 26 May 2002, 14:37 GMT]
The Federation of Hindu Temples in Batticaloa and Amparai said Sunday that the Sri Lankan security forces in the region continue to encompass more than 15 places of worship in the two districts within the defence perimeters of their camps. The trustee boards of fourteen Hindu temples in Batticaloa and Amparai complained to the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission (SLMM) Saturday that their precincts and environs are still occupied by Sri Lankan security forces.
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SL armed forces said violating children's rights

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 15 May 2002, 17:38 GMT]
The Sri Lanka army and the Special Task Force haven't come up with a schedule for leaving more than eighty schools occupied by them in the districts of Jaffna, Mullaithivu, Vavuniya, Mannar, Trincomalee, Batticaloa and Amparai although they should have started doing so soon after the ceasefire agreement between Colombo and the Liberation Tigers came into effect on 24 February 2002, Northeast Provincial Education Ministry officials said Wednesday.
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Muslims hail SLMC-LTTE agreement

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 17 April 2002, 22:31 GMT]
(News Feature) Sri Lanka’s Muslim community this week welcomed the landmark agreement signed between the largest Muslim party, the Sri Lanka Muslim Congress (SLMC) and the Liberation Tigers. Mr Vellupillai Pirapaharan, leader of the LTTE, met with Mr Rauf Hakeem, leader of the SLMC last weekend and the two leaders agreed to cooperate closely on affairs related to Sri Lanka's Muslim community.
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SLMC, LTTE sign agreement, plan more meetings

[TamilNet, Saturday, 13 April 2002, 19:26 GMT]
(News Feature) Muslim leaders and the Liberation Tigers have signed an agreement to cooperate on affairs related to Sri Lanka's Muslim community, the head of the largest Muslim party told a press conference Saturday. Mr. Rauf Hakeem, leader of the Sri Lanka Muslim Congress (SLMC) and a delegation from his party flew to the LTTE-held town of Kilinochchi on Saturday morning for discussions with an LTTE delegation headed by the movement's leader, Mr. Vellupillai Pirapaharan.
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"LTTE-TNA decide to work united"-Sampanthan

[TamilNet, Saturday, 13 April 2002, 18:47 GMT]
"The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) and the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) have accepted the need to work unitedly,"said Mr.R.Sampanthan, leader of the TNA parliamentary group Saturday evening in a statement on his return to Colombo from Vanni. Mr.Sampanthan told Tamilnet that the three and a half hour meeting with the LTTE leader was a historic event.
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Tamil paramilitaries pose risk to truce – Karikalan

[TamilNet, Friday, 15 March 2002, 16:11 GMT]
(News Feature) The deputy leader of the political wing of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) and the head of its Batticaloa - Amparai section said this week that the movement was committed to the terms and conditions of the permanent ceasefire agreement and that the LTTE was engaging in the peace process from a position of strength. In an interview to TamilNet at the LTTE’s district political head office in Kokkaddicholai, Mr. Karikalan said that harassment of civilians by the Sri Lankan armed forces in the Batticaloa-Amparai district was continuing and Tamil paramilitaries working with the army had not been disarmed yet.
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Despondent paramilitaries mull arms surrender

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 26 February 2002, 15:48 GMT]
The Sri Lanka army has given 48 hours to Tamil paramilitary groups operating in the Batticaloa district to disarm or join the military and serve outside the Northeast, the regional Tamil daily, Thinakathir reported Tuesday, quoting sources in SLA's 23-3 Brigade Headquarters in the eastern town.
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Paramilitaries stirring communal tension through crimes - LTTE

[TamilNet, Monday, 04 February 2002, 16:09 GMT]
Agent provocateurs under the guise of being members of the Liberation Tigers are engaged in criminal activities in the Batticaloa district in a bid to provoke communal tension and undermine the ongoing Norwegian peace efforts, the LTTE's political section for the Batticaloa and Amparai districts said Sunday. In a Tamil-language statement issued in the eastern districts, the LTTE said paramilitary groups working with the Sri Lanka armed forces were responsible for a string of thefts, forcible removal of property from Muslim homes and businesses and extortion. The LTTE appealed to all Tamil speaking people in the region to be united against such efforts to spread alarm.
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Tamil Parties Alliance reiterates its commitment

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 18 December 2001, 14:49 GMT]
The parliamentary group of the Tamil Parties Alliance (TNA) at its first meeting held Tuesday strongly reiterated that "it has come together and obtained the mandate of the Tamil people in the Northeast to pursue the policies enunciated in its election manifesto, in relation to the resolution of the Tamil national question, which primarily requires the immediate commencement of negotiations with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam with international third party involvement, and to facilitate the commencement of such negotiations, the lifting of the proscription imposed on the LTTE in Sri Lanka."
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