SLA soldiers deployed around Jaffna daily Eelanadu, gunshots fired

[TamilNet, Friday, 05 May 2006, 15:55 GMT]
Sri Lanka Army (SLA) deployed soldiers around the Jaffna based daily, Namathu Eelanadu, located on Navalar Road around 7:00 p.m., Friday. Around fifteen gunshots were heard in front of the paper office, according to the staff.
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Army plans new Muslim unit amid militancy furore

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 28 March 2006, 02:01 GMT]
Amid a furore over the Liberation Tigers’ demands that Sri Lankan government disarms a Muslim entity called ‘Jihad’ which is amongst five anti-LTTE paramilitary groups being sponsored by military intelligence, the Sri Lanka Army is reportedly planning to raise an exclusive Muslim unit in the island’s volatile eastern province. The issue of Muslim militancy has been gaining focus amid renewed suggestions by the LTTE that Jihad has links to Pakistani intelligence – a charge leveled by Indian military analysts as early as in 2004.
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Paramilitary issue raised in Congressional Hearing

[TamilNet, Friday, 17 March 2006, 02:19 GMT]
Congressman James A Leach, Chairman, Subcommittee on Asia and the Pacific, and Donald Camp, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs, during a House Committee on International Relations, Subcommittee on Asia and the Pacific Hearing on Recent Developments in Nepal held on 15 March 2006, mentioned the presence of armed paramilitary groups as one of the impediments to peace.
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Norwegians assist Kinniya tsunami affected families

[TamilNet, Friday, 17 March 2006, 00:52 GMT]
Twenty permanent houses constructed with the funds collected by Norwegians in their country under the sponsorship of Norwegian Solidarity Organization were handed over to the tsunami affected families in Naduottu, a village in Kinniya division in Trincomalee district Wednesday afternoon. Each 500 sq.ft house was constructed at a cost of five hundred thousand rupees, sources said.
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Donors to ensure equity in aid distribution- Norway diplomat

[TamilNet, Thursday, 16 March 2006, 00:15 GMT]
"The donor community is currently focusing its attention in ensuring equity in tsunami aid supply to North East," Mr. Erik F.Brede, Counselor of the Norwegian embassy in Colombo told presspersons when he paid a visit to Naduottu, a village in Kinniya division in Trincomalee district on Wednesday. Mr Brede was in Trincomalee to participate in the handing over event of twenty houses constructed with the funds provided by a group of Norwegian citizens to the tsunami affected families.
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SLN takes Indian poachers to Point Pedro military base

[TamilNet, Sunday, 12 March 2006, 09:13 GMT]
Five South Indian fishermen from Puthuchcheri district in TamilNadu who entered Munai area in the northern waters around 11:00 a.m. Sunday, were taken to the shore by Vadamaradchi fishermen. Tense situation ensued between the Sri Lanka Navy troopers and the local fishermen as they refused to hand over the Indian fishermen to the SLN. However, the SLN soldiers threatened the local fishermen and have forcibly taken the Tamil Nadu fishermen to the 52-4 Brigade quarters for investigations, fisheries officials said.
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Vaiko, Jayalalitha form alliance

[TamilNet, Saturday, 04 March 2006, 18:07 GMT]
Leader of MDMK, Vaiko, and Leader of AIADM and TamilNadu Chief Minister, Jayalalitha Jayaram, formed an alliance signing an agreement that allows Vaiko's MDMK to contest in 35 of the 234 Assembly seats in the forthcoming Assembly elections in TamilNadu, media reports from TamilNadu said.
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The Importance of ‘Rearbase’: Taraki, 1989

[TamilNet, Friday, 17 February 2006, 02:05 GMT]
In the 29 October 1989 issue of Sri Lanka's English daily, Island International, late Dharmeratnam Sivaram, popular journalist and Senior editor at TamilNet, writes on the waning importance of a rear base in Tamil Nadu after the end of Eelam war I in 1987. "That a multipurpose comfortable rearbase would in the long term erode the conviction to fight and play into the hands of India was an opinion expressed in 1983. Finally the rearbase started becoming a factor that threatened to undermine the control various leaders had over their fighting cadres," Sivaram wrote.
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Karunanidhi to apprise Delhi on Sri Lanka Tamil issues

[TamilNet, Sunday, 05 February 2006, 06:31 GMT]
Leader of Upcountry Peoples Front (UPF), Periyasamy Chandrasekaran, said in a letter dated 1 February to Dr. Kalaignar M. Karunanithi, President of the Dravida Munnetra Kazhaham of Tamil Nadu, for his early attention to meet India's Prime Minister and Mrs Sonia Ghandi and to release a statement to the media on Sri Lanka Army (SLA) harassment of NorthEast Tamils, UPF media section said.
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Chulipuram student missing, familes continue to flee Jaffna

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 31 January 2006, 01:39 GMT]
Ramanathan Ratheeskumar, 20, from Chulipuram east and a student at the Vaddukoddai Technical College has disappeared after leaving home Thursday to attend school, said his parents in a complaint registered with the Human Rights Commision in Jaffna Monday, civil society sources said.
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Ground conditions will dictate process forward - Thamilchelvan

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 17 January 2006, 10:09 GMT]
Unless there is a marked change in the ground conditions currently dominated by violent conduct by the Sri Lankan Armed forces and the paramilitaries, the patience of the Tamil population, facing killings on a daily basis in the SLA controlled Tamil homeland, will be put on a serious test, LTTE's Political Head S.P. Thamilchelvan, told media following the meeting in Kilinochchi with the Norwegian Ambassador to Sri Lanka Hans Brattskar and the Head of the Scandinavian truce monitors in Sri Lanka, Hagrup Haukland. LTTE Political Head further said that the LTTE leader V. Pirapaharan would convey LTTE's stand to the Norwegian Special Envoy Erik Solheim at the end of January.
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Claymore mines recovered in Thambalakamam

[TamilNet, Friday, 13 January 2006, 16:30 GMT]
Sri Lankan security forces Saturday afternoon recovered two live claymore mines at a place close to Swami Malai, a resettled Tamil village in Thambalakamam division about 27 km off northwest of east port town along Trincomalee-Kandy main road. Both were defused by the army bomb disposal squad. Police sources said.
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24 Mannar Tamils seek refuge in Tamil Nadu

[TamilNet, Friday, 13 January 2006, 12:39 GMT]
A group of twenty four Tamils including nine children from Selvapuram and Olathoduvai in Mannar district reached Rameswaram coast in Ramanathapuram Thursday, a daily in Tamil Nadu said. The influx has begun after a lapse of three years and refugees said threat of war, and harassment by the Sri Lanka armed forces after the recent attack on Sri Lanka Navy as the reasons for deciding to leave Sri Lanka shores, the paper said.
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Clothing store owner killed in Chavakachcheri

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 11 January 2006, 03:26 GMT]
P. Sivasankar, 28, from Meesalai and owner of a clothing store in Chavakacheri town was shot dead at 5.30 p.m. Tuesday on Dutch Road by gunmen suspected to be Sri Lanka Army (SLA) intelligence, sources in Jaffna said. Sivasankar, originally from Erlalai in Valigamam, was displaced from his home town, married and settled in Meesalai, sources said.
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SLTMA demands protection for Tamil media persons

[TamilNet, Sunday, 08 January 2006, 00:24 GMT]
The Sri Lanka Tamil Media Alliance (SLTMA) has requested the Media Minister Mr.Anura Priyadarshana Yapa to take immediate steps to stop harassment of Tamil media institutions and Tamil media persons by government armed forces. SLTMA in its letter to the Media Minister listed several incidents where members of armed forces have subjected Tamil media persons and institutions with unwanted inquiries and harassment, sources said.


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TamilNadu parties ready to lend support to Tamil struggle- Ramdoss

[TamilNet, Saturday, 07 January 2006, 12:21 GMT]
"While the Tamil National struggle in Sri Lanka has assumed new dimensions in its progress towards its goal, parties in Tamil Nadu are spiritually bound to provide unflinching support to Eelam Tamils. We are mobilizing our supporters in India to show our strength and unequivocally express our support," said Leader of Pattali Makkal Katchi (PMK), Dr Ramdoss, when Sri Lanka's Leader of Upcountry Peoples Front (UPF), Periyasamy Chandrasekaran met him Saturday. Mr Chandraseakaran is currently on a two week long visit to Tamil Nadu to meet political leaders sympathetic to Tamil struggle, media co-ordinator for UPF in Colombo, Prabha, said.
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TamilNadu CM cancels Rajapakse meeting

[TamilNet, Thursday, 29 December 2005, 19:16 GMT]
"Dinathanthi," a Tamil daily based in Tamil Nadu, India, in its print edition Thursday quoted India's Foreign Ministry Spokesman, Navtej Sarna, as saying that the meeting scheduled for Friday between the Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapakse and the Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu state, Ms. Jayalalitha Jayaram, in Chennai was cancelled due to the SL President's "full schedule in Delhi," and the Chief Minister not being available that day. Disclosing that the Sri Lankan President was scheduled to visit the bordering state of Kerala to attend a pooja at the Thiruvayoor temple on Friday, the paper said that the cancellation is more due to the increasing concerns being expressed in Tamil Nadu on the Sri Lankan Tamils' situation.
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Rajapakse leaves for India on his first visit abroad

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 27 December 2005, 13:06 GMT]
Sri Lanka's President Mahinda Rajapakse, accompanied by his wife Shiranthi Rajapakse, Foreign Minister Mangala Samaraweera, Ministers Ferial Ashraf,Jeyaraj Fernadopulle and the Secretaries to various Ministries, left for India Tuesday in his first visit abroad at the invitationof the Indian President Abdul Kalam, government sources in Colombo said.


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Housing for war, tsunami affected Trinco families

[TamilNet, Sunday, 25 December 2005, 17:20 GMT]
Twenty-six war affected Tamil families among several hundreds displaced from villages in the Kuchchaveli division, north of Trincomalee district and sheltered in a refugee camp, located in Alles Garden, sea coast of Trincomalee, moved to permanent houses built under the tsunami rehabilitation at Kumburupiddy east village Saturday. Some families have been living in temporary accommodation for more than twenty years, officials said.
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Vaiko meets Indian Premier, Defence Minister in New Delhi

[TamilNet, Friday, 23 December 2005, 13:54 GMT]
Vaiko, the General Secretary of the Marumalarchi Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (MDMK) from the Tamil Nadu state in India, met Indian Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh in New Delhi Friday at 5 p.m. Following the meeting with the Indian Premier, Vaiko also met the Indian Defense Minister Pranab Mukherjee Friday evening. When contacted by TamilNet, the MDMK chief Vaiko described his meetings with Manmohan Singh and Pranab Mukherjee as cordial and constructive. Sri Lanka was trying to trap India to get embroiled into Sri Lanka's conflict as it did in the eighties, Vaiko said, adding that he had cautioned the Indian leaders that Sri Lanka's moves are inimical to Tamil interests.
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