Council staff strike over office language

[TamilNet, Monday, 19 November 2001, 12:14 GMT]
At least four hundred employees of the North East Provincial Council (NEPC) in Trincomalee went on a strike Monday morning demanding that the administrative language of the Council should be Tamil, as specified by the 16th amendment to the Constitution of Sri Lanka, a statement issued by the North East Provincial Government Employees Union (NEPGEU) said.
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PM urges forces to defeat interim administration ‘conspiracy’

[TamilNet, Monday, 19 November 2001, 05:52 GMT]
Sri Lanka’s Prime Minister, Ratnasiri Wickremanayake, this week called on the armed forces to defeat the peace strategy of the main opposition United National Party (UNP). “Your alert contribution is sought to defeat the conspiracy to divide the country by giving an interim administration to the North and East and guarantee the unity of the country,” the Premier said in a message to the armed forces. The notion of an interim administration is part of the UNP’s strategy to de-escalate the island’s protracted conflict.
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Sampanthan canvasses in LTTE held region

[TamilNet, Friday, 16 November 2001, 19:09 GMT]
Mr. R. Sampanthan, the secretary general of the Tamil United Liberation Front (TULF) returned to Trincomalee Friday after two days of campaigning for the Tamil National Alliance in the villages of Mutur south which are held by the Liberation Tigers. He said that he had obtained due permission from the Sri Lanka army's 22 Division in Trincomalee to visit and hold propaganda meetings in the hinterland of Mutur which is under the control of the LTTE. "The electioneering in the LTTE held areas was very satisfactory and a large number of people came for our propaganda meetings with much interest," the secretary general of the TULF said. Mr. Sampanthan is the first Tamil parliamentarian to visit an LTTE held area in the northern or eastern part of the island with the SLA's permission.
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DIG says will consider Jaffna weapons issue

[TamilNet, Friday, 16 November 2001, 11:01 GMT]
The Sri Lanka Police said Friday that it has requested the Eelam People's Democratic Party (EPDP), a major coalition partner of the People's Alliance government, not to go about in the Jaffna peninsula with weapons during the 2001 general elections.
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PA rejects concept of Tamil homeland

[TamilNet, Friday, 16 November 2001, 01:43 GMT]
Sri Lanka's Prime Minister, Ratnasiri Wickremenayake, reiterated his People's Alliance (PA) government's opposition to the concept of a Tamil homeland, the state press reported Friday. "The PA Government has directly and indirectly opposed to accept the concept of Tamil homeland. Therefore our stand is clear," the Daily News quoted Wickremenayake as saying while addressing a meeting in Kalutara town hall.
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14,000 Tamils in Mutur denied booths

[TamilNet, Thursday, 15 November 2001, 22:43 GMT]
The Returning Officer for Trincomalee district has turned down a request by the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) to set up clustered polling booths in Mutur south, enabling about 14,000 voters in the area to cast their votes on 5 December election. Instead, an additional bus service will be provided to the Tamil voters living in the region to travel to clustered polling stations set up near Mahindapura Sri Lanka Army camp and Muttur Al Hidaya School, he said.
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Army intelligence operatives killed in explosion

[TamilNet, Thursday, 15 November 2001, 10:14 GMT]
Three members of the Sri Lanka Army’s military intelligence unit in Batticaloa were killed in an explosion in the high security zone of the eastern town around 10.15 a.m. Thursday. A senior member of the group ‘Vinobha’ (Thambi) was seriously wounded. A cashew nut seller was killed and eight civilians were wounded near Munai Street where the suicide bomb exploded. Shops and schools were closed in the town following the explosion.
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Sri Lanka rules out lifting LTTE ban

[TamilNet, Thursday, 15 November 2001, 02:47 GMT]
Sri Lanka’s President Chandrika Kumaratunga Tuesday categorically ruled out the possibility of lifting her government’s ban on the Liberation Tigers. Speaking at the presentation of her ruling People’s Alliance (PA) manifesto at her official residence, President Kumaratunga ruled out any truck with the Tamil National Alliance (TNA), the Island newspaper reported Wednesday. Commenting on reports of eroding support for the PA amongst the Tamil community, President Kumaratunga said the people of Jaffna were with her and the people under LTTE control were supporting the main opposition United National Party (UNP). "As for the Tamils in Colombo they are really not part of the Tamil community as a whole. They promote what is best for business," she said in derision, the Island reported.
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'Colombo's largesse stained with Tamil blood' -Selvam

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 14 November 2001, 21:35 GMT]
"Every rupee that the Sri Lankan government gives you through its quisling to buy your vote is stained with the blood of our people who were killed in places of refuge and worship, the tears of our women who were gang raped here in Mannar and in every part of the north and east. The Chandrika regime is liberally spending money through its Tamil lackey to bribe our people, to pacify them and thereby show the world that our struggle for justice is a terrorist problem. The people of Mannar have always been patriotic.
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EPDP attacks Tamil Alliance in Pottuvil

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 14 November 2001, 12:27 GMT]
Five supporters of the Tamil National Alliance, including a woman were severely assaulted and wounded by armed cadres of the Eelam People’s Democratic Party in Pottuvil, about 116 kilometres south of Batticaloa in the early hours of the morning Wednesday, Police sources in the east said. The TNA’s campaign office was also attacked, alliance spokesman Henry Mahendran said. Following the attack, one of the TNA supporters, Mr. S. Sathasivam, a librarian, had sought protection from the Police in Pottuvil fearing for his life, that the EPDP cadres may kill him. But the EPDP’s chief candidate for the Ampara district, Gunasekeram Shankar, had gone inside the Police station with his handgun and threatened Mr. Sathasivam, according to Mr. Mahendran.
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'Colombo lacks consistency, commitment'- TNA manifesto

[TamilNet, Monday, 12 November 2001, 15:29 GMT]
The Tamil National Alliance (TNA) Monday said that the Sri Lankan State lacks comprehension and consistency in its "purported efforts to evolve a just solutionî to the Tamil national question. The Alliance released its manifesto in Colombo Monday evening. "The commitment of the Sri Lankan State (to peace) has been called into serious question," the Tamil alliance manifesto states. The manifesto reiterated that the ban on the Liberation Tigers should be lifted in Sri Lanka and that Colombo should stop the war and begin negotiations with Norwegian mediation.
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Presidential guard organised Ponnambalam murder - paper

[TamilNet, Sunday, 11 November 2001, 23:21 GMT]
A former member of Sri Lanka's Presidential Security Division found shot dead earlier this month was involved in orchestrating the assassination of former Tamil politician, Kumar Ponnambalam, the Sunday Leader newspaper reported this week. The paper also named the assassin, said to be a former Police constable.
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Five soldiers killed in Mutur attacks

[TamilNet, Saturday, 10 November 2001, 12:04 GMT]
At least five Sri Lanka army soldiers were killed Saturday afternoon in two attacks by the Liberation Tigers in Mutur, security sources said. Four soldiers were killed in a claymore blast and one was killed in an ambush in the general area of Mallikaithivu, on the coastal road from Mutur to Batticaloa
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Jaffna missing persons' parents continue protest

[TamilNet, Saturday, 10 November 2001, 08:14 GMT]
"Arrests, deaths and destruction will continue in our land until our struggle succeeds. To put an end to such tragedies we have to succeed in our people's struggle. If we speak out for our nation then we shall win our struggle for which blood is being spilled," said Rev. Fr. T. Jeyakumar, the head of the Human Development Centre (HUDEC), addressing a demonstration and protest sit in near the Muniappar temple in Jaffna town Saturday by more than 200 parents and relatives of persons who went missing after being arrested by the Sri Lanka army in 1996-97 in the northern peninsula. The protest was organised by the Missing Persons' Guardian Association (MPGA) and the Jaffna Mothers' Front. "We will continue the protest tomorrow as well," the secretary of the MPGA told Tamilnet.
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Protest in Batticaloa over assault on reporter

[TamilNet, Friday, 09 November 2001, 12:13 GMT]
More than 150 journalists, social activists, parents and workers demonstrated in Batticaloa Friday to protest against officials of the Department of Education for assaulting a reporter from the ëThinakathirí, the Tamil daily published in the eastern town.
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Kumaratunga places anti-LTTE record as poll case

[TamilNet, Friday, 09 November 2001, 02:49 GMT]
(News Feature) Sri Lanka's President Kumaratunga Thursday placed her government's hardline approach towards fighting the Liberation Tigers and defending the unity of the country as the central plank of the ruling People's Alliance (PA) election strategy for the forthcoming polls in December. In a lengthy interview in Sinhala to state-owned media on Thursday, translated into English by the official Daily News newspaper on Friday, Kumaratunga also reiterated her accusations that the main opposition United National Party (UNP) was in collusion with the Tamils and the LTTE to dismember the country and vowed to prevent this at any cost. The President slammed critics of her governance as "barking dogs," defectors from her party as "rats," and insisted Sri Lanka's economy was healthy, citing as evidence figures that showed more taxis were on the roads since 1994 and that people were eating more chicken now.
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EPDP threats hassle Jaffna candidates

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 07 November 2001, 17:16 GMT]
The chief candidate of the United National Party in Jaffna, Mr. T. Maheswaran wrote to the Commissioner of Elections Wednesday that polling booths in the islands of Karainagar, Kayts, Nainathivu and Delft should be located in the peninsula because the serious threat posed by the EPDP. He said that heavily armed cadres of the EPDP are intimidating and preventing candidates of other parties from entering the islands. Meanwhile, Mr. Anandasangari, the chief candidate in Jaffna for the Tamil National Alliance said that he was threatened by armed members of the Eelam People’s Democratic Party (EPDP) in Nelliyadi where he went to open a campaign office Wednesday.
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NE doctors strike over pay discrimination

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 07 November 2001, 12:16 GMT]
More than four hundred residential medical officers serving in Northeast provincial hospitals went on strike Wednesday, demanding that they should also be paid special mission allowance as presently awarded to non-residential medical officers. "The medical services in government hospitals in the northeast province have come to a standstill Wednesday due to the strike as more than one hundred non-residential doctors also have struck work to express their solidarity,"a spokesman of the Government Medical Officers' Association (GMOA) said Wednesday.
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Hartal in Batticaloa against Muslim local body

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 06 November 2001, 09:37 GMT]
Shops, schools, businesses and public offices were closed and few people were on the roads in the Batticaloa district in response to a call by the Tamil national alliance for a general shut down (Hartal) to protest against the establishment of a new Muslim dominated local government body. Tamils say that the new local body, the Koralaipattu Central Pradheshiya Sabha, unjustly encompasses a large Tamil region in the northern part of the Batticaloa district. The Sri Lanka army warned Tamil shop owners in the Valaichenai that they should not close their establishments today. But shops were closed Tuesday morning. Soldiers who came to the Valaichenai bazaar later in the morning forced the owners to open their shops.
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