Pre-school teachers celebrate teachers’ day in Vavuniya

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 08 October 2003, 00:02 GMT]
At the Teachers’ day held at the Suthananda Hindu Youth Union Hall in Vavuniya town Monday, with the support of the Tamils’ Rehabilitation Organization (TRO), more than 350 pre-school teachers from the 24 zonal districts of the Northeast province participated, sources said.
Full story >>

‘War has ruined education of NE Tamil students’

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 07 October 2003, 18:12 GMT]
The Dean of the Faculty of Business Studies in the Vavuniya campus of the Jaffna University, Mr.R. Nanthakumar, Tuesday said that the twenty-year war has ruined the education of students in the Northeast province, and the standard of education among Tamil students in the province has gone down to the extent that more students enter universities on district quota system than on merit as in the past.
Full story >>

Stateless Tamils’ long struggle bears fruit

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 07 October 2003, 16:59 GMT]
A bill to grant citizenship to 168,141 stateless Tamils in Sri Lanka descended from people who settled in the hill districts of the island in the 19th century was passed Tuesday without opposition in Sri Lanka’s Parliament. Speaking on the bill, Mr. Arumugan Thondman MP, leader of the Ceylon Workers’ Congress, the largest Tamil political party in the hill districts, said: “These people have contributed so much to this country but were denied all their rights and had to struggle for 55 years to achieve the rights they had prior to 1948. This is symbolic of the ethnic divide in this country.”
Full story >>

SLN truck collision injures motorcyclist in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 07 October 2003, 16:45 GMT]
A motorcyclist, Mr.Magikson Sahayathasan, 40, was knocked down by a speeding truck of the Sri Lanka Navy Tuesday night around 8 p.m. near the Vilundy Pilliayar Kovil in Koddady, a suburb in Jaffna town, police said.
Full story >>

Vavuniya police arrests youths over abduction

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 07 October 2003, 16:16 GMT]
The Vavuniya district judge, Mr. M. Ilancheliyan, ordered remand under high security for three youths arrested by the Vavuniya Police Monday in connection with the abduction of two girls who were thought to have joined the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, but were in fact abducted by unidentified men who later abandoned the girls at the Maravankulam settlement, sources in Vavuniya said.
Full story >>

Women associations' gathering held in Mullaitivu

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 07 October 2003, 05:17 GMT]
An event to bring together several women’s development organizations in Mullaitivu was held on Saturday at the auditorium of Vithiyananda college, and more than 500 women from the district participated, sources said.
Full story >>

Trinco TRO honors Tamil, Sinhala, Muslim pre-school teachers

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 07 October 2003, 02:00 GMT]
Tamil Rehabilitation Organization (TRO) in Trincomalee made history Monday honoring sixty pre-school teachers of all communities -Sinhalese, Tamil and Muslim- under one roof at an event held in connection with the World Teachers' Day at Trincomalee New Silver Star Hotel.
Full story >>

Teachers protest 'Sinhalization' of Tamil schools

[TamilNet, Monday, 06 October 2003, 15:11 GMT]
The Twenty thousand-member strong Ceylon Tamil Teachers' Union (CTTU) Monday warned that it would launch a massive agitation campaign in collaboration with Tamil political parties if the Western Provincial Council failed to stop posting Sinhalese teachers to Tamil medium schools. The People's Allaince (PA) controls the Western Provincial Council administration.
Full story >>

LTTE Constitutional Affairs Committee meet in Dublin

[TamilNet, Monday, 06 October 2003, 13:09 GMT]
A delegation of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), led by the head of its Political Wing, Mr. S.P. Thamilchelvan, is meeting in Dublin, Ireland, with legal experts from the Tamil diaspora who took part in the Paris discussions in early September to finalize the LTTE's proposals for an Interim Administration for the Northeast, sources in the Vanni said.


Full story >>

LTTE-Muslim representatives meet in Trincomalee

[TamilNet, Monday, 06 October 2003, 12:36 GMT]
The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam and the All Ceylon Jemiyyathul Ulama in Kinniya Monday signed an agreement regarding cultivating paddy lands surrounding the Kurankupanchan LTTE camp area in the Kinniya division in Trincomalee, sources said.
Full story >>

LTTE, SLA meet in Vavunathivu

[TamilNet, Monday, 06 October 2003, 11:31 GMT]
Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) and military officers of the Sri Lanka Army (SLA) met at the Vavunathivu district secretariat building at 10am Monday morning for two hours, security sources in Batticaloa said. Batticalo district head of the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission (SLMM), Antii Juntunen presided the meeting.
Full story >>

SLA arrests two Pt. Pedro MPCS workers

[TamilNet, Monday, 06 October 2003, 08:44 GMT]
The Sri Lanka army arrested two persons working at the Multi Purpose Co-operative Society (MPCS) in Pt. Pedro, Jaffna Monday morning for having in their possession two copies of the tenth anniversary volume of the Charles Anthony Brigade, the first conventional military formation of the Liberation Tigers. The Pt. Pedro MPCS is located inside part of the town centre garrisoned by the SLA’s 52-4 Brigade.
Full story >>

‘SLA, Police should vacate Batticaloa MC offices’

[TamilNet, Monday, 06 October 2003, 04:12 GMT]
The Sri Lanka Army should remove its 23-3 brigade headquarters operating at the Batticaloa Municipal Council (MC) buildings and government employees’ quarters, and return the buildings to their rightful owners, the Tax Payers Association of Batticaloa (TPAB) has demanded in a letter to the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission, sources in Batticaloa said.
Full story >>

SLA stops Valalai temple repair

[TamilNet, Monday, 06 October 2003, 03:26 GMT]
The Sri Lanka army Sunday stopped repairs to the Kaali Temple in Valalai, a village in the Valigamam division of Jaffna, residents said. Last week the SLA ordered several families in this resettled village to dismantle their homes that they had rebuilt as permanent structures. The Sri Lankan military, however, insists the village is part of its security environs, although it lies outside the bounds of its Palaly-Kakesanthurai base, which encompasses most of the Valigamam North Division.
Full story >>

Two missing girls in Vavuniya found

[TamilNet, Monday, 06 October 2003, 02:42 GMT]
Two school-going girls aged 15 and 16, who left letters at their homes saying that they were going to join the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), were later found in a vacant home in the Maravankulam settlement in Vavuniya by neighbors, sources in vavuniya said.
Full story >>

NE observes death anniversary of LTTE leaders

[TamilNet, Sunday, 05 October 2003, 18:55 GMT]
The sixteenth death anniversary of twelve LTTE cadres, including senior commanders Lt. Col. Pulendran and Lt. Col. Kumarappa, was held at Theeruvil in Valvettithurai in Jaffna district Sunday with the opening of the renovated memorial tomb, which was destroyed by the Sri Lanka Army when it captured the peninsula in 1996, sources said.
Full story >>

Arrest over leaflet stops work in harbour

[TamilNet, Sunday, 05 October 2003, 16:32 GMT]
Ship unloading at the Pt. Pedro Jetty in Jaffna stopped when workers walked out of the harbour in protest over the detention of two of their colleagues by the Sri Lanka army Sunday morning. Sri Lankan military in Pt. Pedro said the two had brought into the harbour leaflets to mark the sixteenth death anniversary of twelve Liberation Tigers, including two senior commanders, who committed suicide in SLA custody in Palaly, refusing to be flown to Colombo for interrogation and detention in October 1987.
Full story >>

LTTE, SLA to meet in Vavunathivu

[TamilNet, Sunday, 05 October 2003, 13:04 GMT]
A Sri Lanka Army (SLA) delegation led by 23-3 Brigade Commander Col.L.Ameratunge will meet with a Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) delegation led by Senior Commander T.Ramesh at the Vavunathivu district Secretariat building Monday, security sources in Batticaloa said.
Full story >>

Ex-EPRLF cadre shot dead in Batticaloa

[TamilNet, Sunday, 05 October 2003, 12:03 GMT]
Subramaniam Kirubakaran, 36, a former member of the Eelam Peoples Revolutionary Liberation Front (EPRLF) was shot dead in Araiyampathy in Batticaloa district Saturday morning at 10 am, ex-militant sources said
Full story >>

Cole, Chang lead US Patriot Act challenge by Tamils

[TamilNet, Sunday, 05 October 2003, 00:05 GMT]
Professor David Cole of Georgetown University and Nancy Chang, Senior attorney at Center for Constitutional Rights, New York, will lead the legal challenge against the provision of the USA Patriot Act that criminalizes the provision of “expert advice and assistance” to proscribed organizations. Plaintiffs in this case filed by CCR include four US Tamil organizations and a Tamil-American physician, according to CCR attorneys.
Full story >>