SLA launches artillery attack on LTTE territory in Vavunathivu

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 02 January 2007, 12:22 GMT]
Soldiers from Sri Lanka Army (SLA) Vavunathivu camp fired mortar and artillery shells from 5:10 a.m Tuesday on the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) held areas in Vavunathivu in Batticaloa, sources from Batticaloa said. SLA spokesperson Prasath Samarasinghe said the attack was retaliation to the LTTE artillery fire on Vavunathivu SLA camp areas from 5:45 a.m to 6:45 a.m Tuesday. He added that one SLA trooper was injured in the LTTE attack.
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Kfirs bomb in Vaharai

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 02 January 2007, 12:20 GMT]
Sri Lanka Air Force Kfir jets bombed Panichchenkerny area in Vaharai region in Liberation Tigers of Tamileelam (LTTE) controlled Batticaloa district around 10:40 a.m. Tuesday, sources in the east said.
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Aerial attack on Padahuthurai, a crime against humanity - Bishop

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 02 January 2007, 10:22 GMT]
The Bishop of Mannar Diocese, Rt Rev Rayappu Joseph, who visited Padahuthurai hamlet, which was completely destroyed by indiscriminate aerial bombardment by the Sri Lanka Air Force Tuesday morning, has condemned the bombardment and said the attack had destroyed the settlement of the Internally Displaced persons. There was no military installation of the LTTE in the area, the Bishop told media. The Bishop, calling the bombardment "a crime against humanity," urged the International Community to send independent observers to NorthEast. Death toll has risen to 15, including 7 children below age nine , a pregnant woman, her child and husband.
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Tamileelam National Registry of Persons established

[TamilNet, Monday, 01 January 2007, 13:59 GMT]
The Civil Administration in Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) administered regions in NorthEast has launched Tamileelam National Registry of Persons on Monday, January 01. The programme was inaugurated by the Commissioner of Tamil Eelam Department of Registration of Persons, S Jeyenthiran, by issuing the first national identity card to LTTE leader Velupillai Pirapaharan. The card will function similar to the Social Security Number (SSN) used in many western democracies, where the number uniquely identifies an individual.
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Battle for Vaharai

[TamilNet, Monday, 01 January 2007, 11:35 GMT]
Vaharai, a large backwater on Sri Lanka’s east coast, is an area with large fertile fields, lagoons and virgin forests in the northern part of the Batticaloa district. More than 15,000 residents and IDPs are now trapped in Vaharai as the Sri Lanka Army (SLA) conducts its brutal campaign to evict Tamils from the region, closing A-15 the main access road to the town, and imposing economic embargo, while Sri Lanka Air Force (SLAF) kfirs fly bombing raids terrorizing the civilians to flee. "They [LTTE] won't be able to keep the civilians for long. Food and medicine is in short supply," Brigadier Prasad Samarasinghe, the top military spokesman, told Reuters in a interview Friday.
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Three youths shot dead in Batticaloa

[TamilNet, Monday, 01 January 2007, 11:32 GMT]
Unidentified armed men abducted three youths from a house at Kiran in Valaichenai police division in Batticaloa district Sunday evening and shot them dead around 7:30 p.m. inside the Christian cemetery on Vishnu Temple road in Kiran. Valaichenai police recovered the bodies blindfolded and hand tieds behind back, and handed them over to Valaichenai District hospital for inquest.
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India, International community must act to deliver peace- Bishop

[TamilNet, Monday, 01 January 2007, 00:01 GMT]
Rt. Rev. Thomas Soundaranayagam, the Bishop of Jaffna, in his New Year message, said that the International Community, in the dawn of the New Year, should, with India's active participation, positively assert itself with new vigor and put forward a just and fair solution to resolve the ethnic conflict. "This is the only New Year request I am placing in front of the International Community, when war clouds gather over Tamil areas, starvation threatens to engulf the Tamil people, spectre of infectious deceases spreading amidst shortage of medicines looms in the horizon, and fear and anxiety grips the Tamil people as they live day-to-day," the Bishop said.
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Curfew in Thenmaradchi continues

[TamilNet, Sunday, 31 December 2006, 04:11 GMT]
The indefinite extension of Sri Lanka Army (SLA) curfew on Thenmaradchi from Thursday 9:00 p.m continued for more than 24 hours, causing untold difficulties to the residents of the area, confining them indoors, sources from Chavakacheri said. There had been no clashes or extraordinary circumstances calling for search operation in the area where the curfew is being imposed by the SLA, the sources added.
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SLAF Kfir jets bomb Vaharai

[TamilNet, Saturday, 30 December 2006, 21:16 GMT]
Sri Lanka Air Force (SLAF) kfir jets flew four bombing sorties over Puliyankandalady in Vaharai in the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) held territory, Saturday around 9:00 a.m, forcing the civilians who had sought safety in the Vaharai hospital to flee in panic, seeking safety inside bunkers, sources from Vaharai said.


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Jaffna dailies face closure due to newsprint shortage

[TamilNet, Saturday, 30 December 2006, 13:23 GMT]
Acute shortage of newsprint and printing ink in Jaffna may force closure of Tamil dailies, Uthayan, Yarl Thinakural and Valampuri, administrators at the papers' main offices said. After the Sri Lanka Army (SLA) closed A9 in 11 August, no printing material and ink were allowed into Jaffna district, officials added.
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MP slams aerial bombardment on water refinery

[TamilNet, Saturday, 30 December 2006, 10:37 GMT]
The Sri Lanka Air Force (SLAF), in its latest bombing raids in Vaharai on Thursday, completely destroyed a water refinery constructed by the UN agencies to remedy the drinking water shortage in the area near Verugal Murugan temple, charged S. Jeyanandamoorthy, the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) Parliamentarian from Batticaloa. In a press communiqué issued on Friday, the MP said: "the bombardment on the water refinery is not only a Ceasefire violation but is a human rights violation and a war crime too."
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Paramilitary attack repulsed in Batticaloa - LTTE

[TamilNet, Saturday, 30 December 2006, 07:13 GMT]
Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) launched a counter-attack on a group of paramilitary cadres of Karuna Group, Friday night, when the group attempted to launch a penetration attack on a LTTE camp in Kudumbimalai, northwest of Batticaloa. A wounded paramilitary cadre was captured alive and the dead body of another was recovered by the Tigers, according to the Military Spokesman of the Tigers Irasiah Ilanthirayan. Four Tiger fighters were wounded in the confrontation. Kudumbimalai, a hat shaped hill, is located in the middle of the large Vadamunai-Tharavai region, northwest of Batticaloa.
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Abducted PLOTE members found dead

[TamilNet, Friday, 29 December 2006, 15:48 GMT]
Bodies of two senior members of the Peoples Liberation Organization of Tamil Eelam (PLOTE) who were abducted on Wednesday night around 8 p.m.at Puttalam area by an unknown armed gang were recovered Friday morning along Kurunagala-Medagama road in Galgamuwa police division with gunshot injuries. Their hands were tied behind their back, sources said.
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Vaharai IDPs rally, demand International relief, re-opening of A-15

[TamilNet, Friday, 29 December 2006, 11:28 GMT]
Thousands of Tamils, most of them Internally Displaced Persons in the Sri Lanka Army besieged Vaharai region, Friday at 10:00 a.m. marched from Vaharai school IDP camp towards the Vaharai Hospital in a prosession, and handed over an appeal addressed to the Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapakse, calling on the Government of Sri Lanka (GoSL) to allow the International Relief to reach Vaharai and re-open the A-15 access route, that has remained closed by the Sri Lanka Army for the last 2 months. The IDPs also raised concerns over the alleged move to select Sampoor region to set up a Coal Power Plant preventing the internally displaced people of the area from resettling in their own lands.
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De-populating Sampoor

[TamilNet, Thursday, 28 December 2006, 23:21 GMT]
Indian state owned National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC) is set to sign a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Colombo, on Friday, amid protests from Tamil parliamentarians who are voicing concerns that the Coal-Fired Power Plant project in Sampoor has a hidden political agenda to permanently evict Tamils from the Muthur east region. Around 30,000 Tamils were forced to leave the southern Trincomalee region into Vaharai when Sri Lanka military launched a major offensive and captured Sampoor from the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam in September.
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Two Tamil youths abducted in Mannar

[TamilNet, Thursday, 28 December 2006, 17:07 GMT]
A group of unidentified armed men Thursday early morning around 5.30 a.m. forcibly entered a house at Eluthoor area in Mannar town and abducted four Tamil youths. Two of the abducted, were released shortly. The two persons, still missing, have been identified as Rasanayagam Jeyasekar, 30, a father of one child and Francis Thurairaj, 26.
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Tamil Law students protest discrimination in admissions

[TamilNet, Thursday, 28 December 2006, 13:18 GMT]
Tamil students who were denied admission to Law College staged a token hunger strike in Colombo outside the Law College on Wednesday morning at 10:00am protesting against discrimination in admission process. Colombo police officials at the scene warned the students that protests were banned inside the High Security Zone, and forcefully removed the students.
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Night-watchman disappears in Vavuniya

[TamilNet, Thursday, 28 December 2006, 12:32 GMT]
Night watchmen at the Pampaimadu, Vavuniya Ayurvedhic Hospital has been reported missing from Wednesday 6:00 p.m., a complaint filed by his relatives at Vavuniya Police said. His possessions and motorbike were found intact inside the building by the Police, according to police reports.
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Two PLOTE operatives disappear in Puttalam

[TamilNet, Thursday, 28 December 2006, 10:02 GMT]
Armed men riding in a van have reportedly abducted two Tamil persons, said to be senior operatives of PLOTE, from a house located at Chenaikudiruppu along Puttalam-Anuradhapura Road Wednesday night, ex-militant sources in Colombo said.
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Rajapakse pays surprise visit to Trincomalee naval base

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 27 December 2006, 20:16 GMT]
Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapakse paid a surprise visit to the SL Naval Base in Trincomalee Wednesday morning and inspected the naval installations and participated in a passing out parade held in the naval base. This was his first visit to Trincomalee after assuming the executive presidency in December last year. Mr. Mahinda Rajapakse is the Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces of Sri Lanka.
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