Indian High Commissioner discusses Canal Project in Mannar

[TamilNet, Monday, 04 July 2005, 10:22 GMT]
Ms Nirupama Rao, Indian High Commissioner to Sri Lanka, Monday visited Mannar and met high ranking navy officials in Thalaimannar, Government Agent of Mannar Mr V Viswalingam and UPFA Minister (SLMC rebel MP) Mr Rishard Badurdeen, and discussed issues related to Sethusamudram Ship Canal Project (SSCP), sources said. The SSCP attempts to create a navigable sea route between Gulf of Mannar and the Bay of Bengal within India’s own territorial waters.
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UNP's foot march continues for second day

[TamilNet, Sunday, 03 July 2005, 11:52 GMT]
162 km long foot march organized by the main opposition United National Party (UNP), which began Saturday morning from the Vishnu Shrine, Dondra head in south of Sri Lanka, arrived Koggala Sunday evening. UNP organized the march called "Peoples Power Movement " demanding that Presidential election must be held in 2005. Protesters also demanded that the United Peoples Front Alliance government must reduce the cost of living. The first phase started from Dondra and concluded at Mirrisa from where the second phase started Sunday morning.
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Navy arrests 25 Tamil refugees in Mannar Sea

[TamilNet, Thursday, 23 June 2005, 16:58 GMT]
Sri Lanka Navy (SLN) Wednesday morning arrested twenty-five Tamil refugees returning from Tamilnadu in South India and the two boatmen in the Mannar Sea, sources said. The Talaimannar Police produced all of the arrested in Mannar Court Thursday morning.
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Tamil refugees rescued from sandbank in Mannar Sea

[TamilNet, Sunday, 19 June 2005, 01:39 GMT]
Fourteen Tamil refugees including four children returning from Tamilnadu in South India were rescued from a sandbank in the Mannar Sea by Mannar fishermen Friday. The refugees were taken into custody by the Sri Lanka Navy (SLN) and handed over to the Talaimannar police Friday evening, sources said.
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Coercive Airpower in the Eelam Conflict- Taraki

[TamilNet, Monday, 30 May 2005, 00:11 GMT]
The article on the use of airpower in Eelam conflict written by late Dharmeratnam Sivaram that appeared in the 19 May 1991 issue of the Island gains added significance in view of recent controversy over Liberation Tigers’ alleged possession of Czech made Zlin type Z-143 aircraft. Full text of the article is reproduced in this feature.


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Do Sri Lanka's defense forces have conventional warfare capability?- Taraki

[TamilNet, Friday, 20 May 2005, 00:34 GMT]
In an article in the Colombo-based Tamil daily, Virakesari, on March 27, 2005, Dharmaretnam Sivaram, analyzed the history of Sri Lanka's defense forces and argued that from the very beginning, the Sri Lankan forces' mission was to confront internal crises that the country's ruling elite feared as grave threats, without the strategic thinking required for conventional warfare or to confront external threats.
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SLN arrests 7 Tamils in Kachchativu Island

[TamilNet, Thursday, 19 May 2005, 13:42 GMT]
Sri Lanka Navy Wednesday night took into custody seven Sri Lankan Tamils, four women and three men when they were waiting in Kachchativu Island for an Indian boat to take them to Tamilnadu shore in South India. Mannar Magistrate Mr.N.M.M.Abdullah Thursday ordered them to be remanded till Friday, legal sources said.
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Polannaruwa magistrate visits Karuna Group / ENDLF camp

[TamilNet, Friday, 15 April 2005, 13:31 GMT]
Acting magistrate for Polannaruwa visited the place where the Karuna Group/ENDLF camps were attacked in the early hours of Friday morning. She inspected the five bodies, including that of a man identified as 'Vijayan', which were in huts in Vannaanthuraiyadi in the general area of Aralanganwila. However Informed sources in Sorivil said there were nine bodies in Vannaanthuraiyadi early Friday morning. Police said the attackers got away. ENDLF is a paramilitary based in South India.
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IDPs, tsunami victims celebrate New Year in camps, tents

[TamilNet, Thursday, 14 April 2005, 10:59 GMT]
Hundreds of thousands of internally displaced Tamil families affected by tsnunami and two decade old war Thursday celebrated another New Year in camps, welfare centres and make-shift structures as their own houses and agricultural lands in the Jaffna district are occupied by soldiers of the Sri Lanka Army (SLA), civil society sources said.


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Refugee woman, children stranded on Adam’s Bridge

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 22 March 2005, 12:06 GMT]
A refugee woman abandoned on a sandbank in the seas off Mannar with her two children was reported missing Tuesday. Fishermen from Thalaimannar who had given food to the woman and her children informed the parish priest of the area about her plight. “They told me that the woman and her daughters were stranded without food or water since Saturday morning. Sri Lanka navy searched the sandbanks in the area when I brought it to their notice”, Fr. Antonydas Christopher Daleema, parish priest for Thalaimannar told TamilNet Tuesday. Local fishermen do not rescue refugees from mid sea, fearing arrest.
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Red Cross signs MoU to reconstruct tsunami hit medical institutions

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 15 March 2005, 13:19 GMT]
The Sri Lanka Red Cross Society (SLRCS) and the International Federation of Red Cross (IFRC) have undertaken to reconstruct, renovate, repair and equip General Hospitals, Base Hospitals, District Hospitals, Rural Hospitals, Peripheral Units and Central Dispensaries in the tsunami affected areas throughout the island.
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Refugees, robbed, molested on sandbank in Mannar sea

[TamilNet, Monday, 07 March 2005, 15:39 GMT]
A group of fifty Sri Lankan Tamil refugees abandoned on a sandbank in the seas off Thalaimannar were assaulted and robbed of all their belongings and savings by five armed men, the victims told Mannar courts Monday. The armed men had stripped and molested the women in the group at gun point. The refugees told Mannar magistrate Mr. N.M.M Abdullah they had left from camps in South India where they had been living for the last fifteen years.
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Tsunami victims remembered in Vadamaradchchi

[TamilNet, Sunday, 27 February 2005, 17:01 GMT]
Special prayer remembering the dead in tsunami disaster in the coastal areas in Vadamaradchchi division in Jaffna district was held Sunday evening at Thumpalai Nesaham Methodist Church in Point Pedro division. Rev.Fr V.Alagarajah, Parish Priest of Kaddaiveli Methodist Church presided, sources said.
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IOM opens shelter for tsunami victims in Muttur

[TamilNet, Friday, 11 February 2005, 10:51 GMT]
Transitional shelter complex comprising forty-five units constructed by the International Organization for Migration (IOM) with the funding of the Government of Japan at a cost of 3.2 million rupees was opened Thursday in Naduthivu in Muttur division, south of Trincomalee district, sources said. One hundred eighty families with one thousand persons displaced from Habeeb Nagar who were sheltered in Annahaar Maha Vidiyalayam since December 26 have been shifted to the transitional shelter complex Thursday, IOM sources said.
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Sri Lanka Navy rescues abandoned refugees

[TamilNet, Monday, 07 February 2005, 11:53 GMT]
Seventeen refugees rescued by Sri Lanka Navy from a sandbank at mid sea were produced in the Mannar court Monday. Indian refugee runners who had promised to illegally ferry them to Mannar abandoned them on one of the shifting sandbanks of the Adam’s Bridge in the early hours of Saturday morning. Mannar magistrate released the refugees.


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Muttur displaced to get transit camp with modern facilities

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 02 February 2005, 04:15 GMT]
International Organization for Migrants (IOM) is proceeding with the construction of 45-unit transit camp for Tsunami affected families in Muttur division, sources in the East said. Each unit in the building will provide shelter to four families and the camp will contain a common recreational center and a Children play area. The families will use the camp as temporary residence till they are provided with own houses, IOM sources said.
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Colombo’s post tsunami development blueprint assailed

[TamilNet, Sunday, 23 January 2005, 03:03 GMT]
Plan drawn up as a blueprint for post-tsunami development by the “Task force to Rebuild the Nation” (TAFREN), one of the three committees comprising the Center for National Operations (CNO) set up by Sri Lanka’s President Chandrika Kumaratunge, announced Monday, is assailed as being immoral, hastily produced, too centralized and conceived without adequate consultation with organizations whose support is vital for the plan's successful execution.
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Government submits estimates to donor countries

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 11 January 2005, 14:46 GMT]
Government of Sri Lanka (GoSL) has submitted a special report to donor countries outlining plans and estimates for tsunami relief work. The report's estimated total for tsunami relief work is Rs. 1.5 billion. Report was prepared by the Department of National Planning within the ministry of Finance and Planning.
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Catastrophes of the past: poetic exaggeration or scientific facts?

[TamilNet, Friday, 07 January 2005, 20:19 GMT]
“To the ancient Tamil world natural calamities like the tsunami that hit the east coast on 26 December 2004 is not unknown,” says professor A.Shanmugathas, head of the department of Tamil, Jaffna University. The Sangam Literature, which is more than 2000 years old, makes reference to similar natural catastrophes (perooly) that have affected the Tamil speaking world - spreading from Cape Comarin in the South to the Vindian ranges in the North. "The history records it that tidal destruction (Kadatkol) has occurred from time to time and these facts are established by the archeological excavations. They are not imaginary accounts," he adds. This is supported by modern scientific theories.
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‘Tamils in northeast are also human beings’- LTTE commander

[TamilNet, Friday, 31 December 2004, 01:25 GMT]
“The Sri Lankan government should not look at this as a Sinhala or Tamil issue. It should see it as a human tragedy and help. We should now ensure that the people rescued from the Tsunami devastation are protected from diseases rather than let the enormity of the tragedy make us inactive. The government of Sri Lanka should consider our people also as human beings," said Col. Soosai, Commander of the Sea Tigers who is directing rescue and relief operations on the southern coast of Jaffna and in Mullaithivu, said in an interview to a London Tamil Television, Deepam TV, Wednesday.
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