Trincomalee women march for peace

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 05 April 2006, 11:15 GMT]
Hundred of women, Tamils, Sinhalese and Muslims Wednesday participated in a silent march for solidarity and peace organized by the Women And Children Care Organization (WACCO) condemning war and demanding peace. Participants carried placards urging the government and others to work for the success of finding lasting peace in the country, sources said
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Vavuniya pre-schools call for immediate release of TRO workers

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 04 April 2006, 12:48 GMT]
Staff, children and parents of Tamil, Muslim and Sinhala Preschools in Vavuniya marched in protest to the Government Secretariat, demanding the safety and release of the seven Tamils Rehabilitation Organization (TRO) staffers who were abducted on 29-30 January and are still missing, TRO officials in Vavuniya said. They handed over a memorandum addressedto Sri Lanka's President Mahinda Rajapakse to Vavuniya Government Agent (GA), T. Sinnathamby, Tuesday morning at the Vavuniya Government Secretariat.
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Trinco results, victory for Tamil nationalism- Elilan

[TamilNet, Sunday, 02 April 2006, 16:26 GMT]
Tamil voters have endorsed the Tamil nationalism overwhelmingly by handing over the administration of the Trincomalee Urban Council (UC) and Trincomalee town and gravets Pradesiya Sabah (PS) to the Ilankai Tamil Arasu Kadchchi (ITAK) in the local elections held Thursday, said Mr.S.Elilan, Trincomalee district political head of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) speaking at a discussion held Sunday morning with the newly elected ITAK councilors in the Trincomalee district, sources said.
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ITAK victory in Trinco proves NorthEast homeland for Tamils- TNA

[TamilNet, Friday, 31 March 2006, 20:19 GMT]
The victory of the Ilankai Tamil Arasu Katchi (ITAK) in the election for the Trincomalee Urban Council and Trincomalee Town and Gravets Pradesiya Sabah have strengthened the concept that the NorthEast province is the homeland for Tamil speaking people, said Mr.K.Thurairetnasingham, Trincomalee district Tamil National Alliance (TNA) parliamentarian Friday evening after the counting of votes came to a close in the local councils held on Thursday.
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Tamil, Muslim candidates elected to Trincomalee UC

[TamilNet, Friday, 31 March 2006, 20:13 GMT]
No Sinhalese has been elected a member to the Trincomalee Urban Council in the election held Thursday. The newly elected council, which is to start functioning from April 15, will have twelve members- 10 from the Ilankai Tamil Arasu Katchi (ITAK) and 2 from the Independent Group. Of the twelve members nine are Tamil members and three are Muslims. The ITAK fielded fourteen Tamils and two Muslims for the Trincomalee UC. Out of them nine Tamils and a Muslim got elected on preferential votes.
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Muslim Federation demands separate delegation in talks

[TamilNet, Monday, 27 March 2006, 10:46 GMT]
In a statement released at a press briefing held Sunday evening at Sainthamaruthu Jumma Mosques conference hall, the Eastern Province Mosques Federation (EPMF) demanded that a separate Muslim delegation should be included in any future peace talks between the Government of Sri Lanka (GOSL) and Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), sources said. The statement also said Muslim community should have the complete freedom to decide on the the composition of such delegation.
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Nuwara Eliya has no Tamil administrative officers- UPF

[TamilNet, Friday, 10 March 2006, 03:09 GMT]
Nuwara Eliya, a district with 80% percent Tamil population, and a district which has the largest concentration of Tamils outside NorthEast, does not have a single Tamil Administrative Officer, said Leader of Upcountry Peoples Front (UPF), Periyasamy Chandrasekaran, in an urgent letter sent to Sri Lanka President, Mahinda Rajapakse, UPF's media co-ordinator said Thursday.
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Lord Konesar procession begins in Trincomalee town

[TamilNet, Monday, 27 February 2006, 22:04 GMT]
Three-day procession of Lord Konesar with his consort Mathumai Ambal began Monday evening around 5 p.m. after the annual observance of Maha Sivarathiri day Sunday night in the historic Trincomalee Koneswaram Temple with heavy police security. The town was calm in contrast to the violence that plagued the town since the erection of Lord Buddha statue in the vicinity of the central bus stand, including the execution type killing of Tamil students on the second day of the New Year 2006.
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Maha Sivarathiri to be observed in historic Sivan Temples

[TamilNet, Saturday, 25 February 2006, 02:43 GMT]
Maha Sivarathiri Day religious observance is to be held in the historic Trincomalee Koneswaram Temple, Thiruketheeswaram Temple in Mannar and Kantalai Choleeswaram (Siva) Temple, about 20 km southwest off Trincomalee town on February 26th Sunday night . Arrangements are being made by the temple societies and Hindu Affairs Department , sources said.


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GoSL to disarm armed groups

[TamilNet, Thursday, 23 February 2006, 18:09 GMT]
Norwegian Minister of International Development released a statement on behalf of the parties to the Sri Lanka conflict, the Government of Sri Lanka (GoSL) and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) Thursday evening in Geneva. The GOSL is committed to taking all necessary measures in accordance with the Ceasefire Agreement to ensure that no armed group or person other than Government security forces will carry arms or conduct armed operations. The LTTE is committed to taking all necessary measures to ensure that there will be no acts of violence against the Sri Lankan forces and the police. The parties are to meet again in Geneva on April 19th for a second round of talks.
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Sri Lanka Government's opening statement at Geneva

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 22 February 2006, 12:21 GMT]
"Ceasefire Agreement entered into between the then Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe and Mr. V. Prabhakaran, the leader of the LTTE on the 22nd February 2002 is contrary to our Constitution and law," declared Nimal Sripala De Silva, Head of the Sri Lankan delegation at the opening session of the talks between the Liberation Tigers and the Government of Sri Lanka.
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Switzerland assures impartial support to resolve SL conflict

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 22 February 2006, 10:41 GMT]
Pointing out that the decision to hold talks itself has "substantially decreased" violence in Sri Lanka, Urs Ziswiler, Political Affairs Director, Swiss Federal Department of Foreign Affairs, said in his opening remarks that "Switzerland aims at providing impartial support for conflict transformation in Sri Lanka," and the crucial goal of the teams is to "jointly ensure the human security of ordinary Sinhalese, Tamil and Muslim people in Sri Lanka."


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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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Three suspects arrested for transporting explosives to Mannar

[TamilNet, Thursday, 16 February 2006, 16:36 GMT]
Mannar Police Thursday arrested three persons, two Muslims and a Sinhalese, in two separate incidents when they were allegedly transporting dynamite sticks from outstations to Mannar Island. The Police recovered 125 dynamite sticks from one incident and about 100 in the other, police sources said.
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Red Cross constructs permanent houses for Trinco tsunami victims

[TamilNet, Sunday, 12 February 2006, 16:30 GMT]
Mr.S.Nimalkumar, National Secretary of the Sri Lanka Red Cross Society (SLRCS) Sunday morning laid the foundation stone for a permanent housing project for tsunami affected Sinhalese families in the Trincomalee town and its suburbs at Sumedhankarapura, located at 5th Mile Post along Trincomalee-Kandy highway. The Japan Red Cross Society (JRCS) has been funding three permanent housing projects for tsunami affected families through the Trincomalee district SLRCS, SLRCS sources said.
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TNA to contest eleven local councils in Trinco district

[TamilNet, Sunday, 12 February 2006, 16:27 GMT]
The Tamil National Alliance (TNA) is to contest eleven of thirteen local authorities in the Trincomalee administrative district in the forthcoming election to local councils. TNA will submit nomination lists for two urban councils (UC) and nine pradesiya sabahs (PS) under the election symbol, House, of the Ilankai Tamil Arasu Kadchchi (ITAK), TNA sources said.
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Ashraff wants Muslims to pray for Geneva talks success

[TamilNet, Friday, 10 February 2006, 18:33 GMT]
Ms Ferial Ashraff, leader of the National Unity Alliance and the Minister for Housing Friday appealed to Muslim to pray for the success of peace talks scheduled to be held in Geneva on February 22 and 23. She declared open of an office of the NUA Friday in Amparai. She is also the Amparai district parliamentarian, sources said.
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Batticaloa farmers discriminated in compensation payments-TNA MP

[TamilNet, Thursday, 09 February 2006, 16:40 GMT]
Mr.T.Kanagasabai, Batticaloa district Tamil National Alliance (TNA) parliamentarian, made an urgent appeal to the Minister of Agriculture not to show racial discrimination in paying compensation to farmers whose paddy crops had been destroyed due to flood by heavy rain during the end of last year, sources said.
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TRO opens first Sinhala pre-school in Trincomalee

[TamilNet, Thursday, 09 February 2006, 12:21 GMT]
The first pre-school constructed by the Tamil Rehabilitation Organization (TRO) for Sinhalese children in the Trincomalee district with the funding of the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) at a cost of one 150,000 rupees was declared open Thursday morning, in Vijithapura, a Sinhala suburb in the Trincomalee town. The institution has been named Sumathi Pre-School.
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"Sri Lanka, an Asian Gaza strip"

[TamilNet, Saturday, 04 February 2006, 15:58 GMT]
Describing Sri Lanka's people as "talented, educated and ready for the globalization experience," and extolling Sri Lanka's virtues as a country that "could mature into a gem like Switzerland or Singapore, that it could offer the rest of the world an exemplary measure of hope," Prof Tom Plate of University of California, Los Angeles, says that two decades of conflict has converted the tourist postcard island into an Asian Gaza strip and that "things are getting worse. Its new, recently elected President, Mahinda Rajapakse, is demonstrating astonishing ineptitude," in an article that appeared on a UCLA Asia Media news journal, 3rd February.
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