SLA bars IDPs returning by sea

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 04 June 2002, 19:42 GMT]
The Sri Lanka army Tuesday refused to permit more than 32 fishermen and their families who came by sea from the Mullaithivu coast to land in Sakkottai, a fishing village near Pt. Pedro in Jaffna, from which they were displaced by the war in 1995. "The fishermen have come with their gear and other belongings to resettle in their village. It is too expensive for them to bring their boats, out board motors and fishing gear by road to Jaffna. They are stranded in mid sea with women and children because of the SLA is refusing to consider their plight", an official of the Federation of Fisheries Societies in Vadamaradchi told TamilNet.
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"LTTE too taking risks with peace" -TNA

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 04 June 2002, 18:01 GMT]
"There must be no assumption that it is only the government of Sri Lanka which is taking risks; it must be realized that even the LTTE is taking risks when it is engaged in the peace process," said Mr.Rajavarothiam Sampanthan, the leader of the Tamil National Alliance parliamentary group when moving an adjournment motion Tuesday in the Sri Lankan parliament. He appealed to the international Community on behalf of the Tamil National Alliance not to take any step that would prejudice the legitimate struggle of the Tamil people for equality of this country.
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Sri Lanka's conditions for talks create an 'impasse' - Balasingham

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 04 June 2002, 12:42 GMT]
The Norwegian peace initiative in Sri Lanka has been delayed by the government’s failure to implement the terms of the permanent ceasefire with the Liberation Tigers and is threatened by the hostile intervention of President Chandrika Kumaratunga, the LTTE’s chief negotiator and political advisor, Mr. Anton Balasingham, told the Tamil Guardian this week.
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Parliament to debate TNA motion on cease-fire agreement

[TamilNet, Monday, 03 June 2002, 22:21 GMT]
The adjournment motion submitted to the Speaker by the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) is scheduled to be taken up for a three-hour debate in the parliament Tuesday morning. The motion urges the United National Front government to take immediate steps to fully implement the confidence building measures embodied in the cease-fire agrement signed by the government and the Liberation Tigers in order to ensure that the objective of the agreement of finding a negotiated solution to the ongoing ethnic conflict in Sri Lanka is fulfilled.
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Islamic group threatens journalist

[TamilNet, Monday, 03 June 2002, 22:18 GMT]
Mr. Senathirajah Jeyanandamoorthy, the correspondent for the Tamil dailies Virakesari and Thinakkural, in Valaichenai, 32 kilometres north of Batticaloa, said Monday he was threatened by an armed group backed by local Muslim politicians for his coverage of a simmering dispute in the region over the creation of an administrative division which Tamils oppose on the grounds that it grabs their lands and is meant as another ethnic wedge to disrupt the contiguity of the Batticaloa district. Mr. Jeyanandamoorthy said that the group, comprising mostly Muslims who deserted the Sri Lanka army and ex home guards, vowed to kill him in a warning delivered Monday.
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Vehicle shortage hampers Jaffna development

[TamilNet, Sunday, 02 June 2002, 17:53 GMT]
A persistent shortage of official vehicles for civil administrators is hampering rehabilitation and reconstruction work in war-ravaged Jaffna, officials in the northern town said. Four Divisional Secretaries in the Jaffna district have not been provided with vehicles for development work by Colombo. The official vehicle of the Chankanai Divisional Secretary (DS), which was commandeered by the Sri Lanka Army under Emergency Regulations for requisitioning of vehicles and property, is yet to be returned.
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Four returning refugees drown

[TamilNet, Sunday, 02 June 2002, 12:21 GMT]
Four Tamil refugees coming home from India drowned in the seas off Mannar on 23 May when the boat up to seventeen people were travelling in capsized in strong winds, press reports said. The dead included a five-month-old baby and her mother. Two other women also drowned.
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Jaffna drive against ‘kassipu’ trade

[TamilNet, Sunday, 02 June 2002, 11:36 GMT]
A new drive by local residents to stamp out the illicit liquor trade is underway in Urumpirai, Urelu and Karanthan areas of Jaffna with the support of the police, participants said last week. Meanwhile, in a statement released in Trincomalee, the Liberation Tigers banned the production and sale of illicit liquor, press reports said last week.
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‘Help Vanni demining’ plea to UN agencies

[TamilNet, Saturday, 01 June 2002, 12:06 GMT]
The demining effort in the Vanni is suffering from limited resources and is in desperate need of international assistance, a meeting of local and international non-governmental organisations, including UN agencies, was told by the coordinator of efforts in the region last week .
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New licence rules hamper Jaffna travel

[TamilNet, Saturday, 01 June 2002, 11:47 GMT]
The Sri Lankan Army has ordered that all vehicles entering Jaffna through the Muhamalai check-point - and all vehicles on the roads in Jaffna - need to have Sri Lankan Motor Vehicle Authority-issued license plates. As a result, many people in the Vanni region are unable to travel to Jaffna, with only few vehicles having been able to obtain registrations with the SLMVA.
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SLMM frees arrested youths

[TamilNet, Saturday, 01 June 2002, 11:35 GMT]
Four Tamil youths arrested by the Special Task Force (STF) and subsequently released without charge have protested their abductions to the Sri Lankan Monitoring Mission (SLMM) office in Ampara, press reports said. The youths were released after the intervention of an SLMM official.
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Truce monitors protest military conduct

[TamilNet, Saturday, 01 June 2002, 10:38 GMT]
(News Feature) Tensions between the Sri Lankan armed forces and local residents increased this weekend in the Batticaloa and Amparai districts following new incidents of violence and harassment by the military, reports said Saturday. The vicious assaults of four fishermen by police commandos prompted the head of the local ceasefire monitors' head to plead with the security forces "to desist from violating the ceasefire and arresting and torturing innocent youths under various pretexts," press reports said.
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US denies military alliance amid Tamil suspicion

[TamilNet, Friday, 31 May 2002, 10:04 GMT]
(News Feature) The United States denied Friday it was planning to enter into defence pact or treaty with Sri Lanka and said the proposed Acquisition and Cross Servicing Agreement (ACSA), “does not ally the two countries in any formal way.” Sri Lankan and Indian press coverage of increased defence cooperation between Colombo and Washington, including the supply of two radar-equipped surveillance aircraft, had drawn protests from Tamil politicians and media that the move would damage prospects for peace.
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"Rules for islands humiliating, wont enter" - LTTE

[TamilNet, Thursday, 30 May 2002, 21:43 GMT]
"We will not enter the islands of Jaffna in compliance with the conditions that the Sri Lanka Navy has imposed on us now. The Navy's action is aimed at further subverting the peace process and creating a fear psychosis among the people of the islands," said Mr. Ilamparithi, the head of the political office of the Liberation Tigers in Jaffna, responding Thursday to the 12 conditions stipulated by the Sri Lanka Navy for allowing his colleagues to engage in political work in the islands of the northern peninsula.
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Jaffna visits of ministers said futile

[TamilNet, Thursday, 30 May 2002, 21:40 GMT]
Jaffna district Tamil National Alliance parliamentarian Mr.M.K.Sivajilingam Thursday said that several ministers of the United National Front government visit Jaffna as mere tourists and leave without taking any concrete steps to alleviate the sufferings of the people here while participating in several engagements with the School Education Minister Mr. Suranimala Rajapakse who arrived Jaffna Thursday on an official visit.
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STF ‘deliberately’ violated ceasefire - SLMM

[TamilNet, Thursday, 30 May 2002, 20:13 GMT]
The arrest and torture of a member of the Liberation Tigers by the elite Special Task Force (STF) constituted a deliberate breach of the permanent ceasefire according to the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission (SLMM), as the troops had penetrated over one kilometre into LTTE-held territory to carry out the attack.
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Islands imbroglio continues amid new conditions

[TamilNet, Thursday, 30 May 2002, 18:52 GMT]
(News Feature) The Sri Lanka Navy continued to resist entry of political cadres of the Liberation Tigers into the islands off the Jaffna peninsula, press reports said this week. In the latest development in the acrimonious and long running saga, the Sri Lankan government backed the Navy, insisting that the LTTE's activists must accept twelve conditions if they are to get access to the tens of thousands of Tamil people who inhabit the islands.
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More Tigers begin political work

[TamilNet, Thursday, 30 May 2002, 16:03 GMT]
Scores of cadres from the Liberation Tigers’ political section arrived in Jaffna and Vavuniya earlier this week, Tamil press reports said. Forty-nine LTTE cadres arrived in Jaffna this week whilst twelve entered Vavuniya. More LTTE volunteers are expected to arrive in Vavuniya and Mannar soon.
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SLA exacerbates war fear in east

[TamilNet, Thursday, 30 May 2002, 15:47 GMT]
Residents in the east coast villages of Kiran and Maankerni said Thursday the actions of the Sri Lanka army here is exacerbating fears among them that the war might erupt again soon. Soldiers from the SLA camp in Kiran, 28 kilometres north of Batticaloa, told people in the area Tuesday to make coffins and expect the war to break out again anytime. Residents of Maankerni, 47 kilometres north of Batticaloa, said that the SLA is photographing the members of every family in the village and has bulldozed the local cemetery to reinforce its defences.
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Persistent Police absence frees PTA accused

[TamilNet, Thursday, 30 May 2002, 15:43 GMT]
The Eastern High Court Thursday discharged a Tamil youth arrested in 1998 under the Prevention of Terrorism Act when the Police officer who recorded his purported confession failed to appear in court for the sixth time. Hundreds of Tamil youth languish in Sri Lankan prisons for long years because Policemen who record their confessions are often transferred out by the time their cases are eventually taken up for hearing. Tamil human rights lawyers say that this is inevitable in Sri Lanka's PTA cases where the confession of the accused is the sole production and the Policemen who record and translate it are the sole witnesses.
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