Tamil learning in NE said wanting

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 10 July 2001, 13:33 GMT]
"About ten percent of Tamil medium students failed in their mother tongue at the 1998 G.C.E. ordinary level examination. This trend still prevails among students in northeast. To arrest this trend, teachers and principals should take firm steps to develop the teaching of the mother tongue," said Mr. Mr. K. Parameswaran, Secretary, Northeast Provincial Ministry of Education while speaking at Tamil day celebrations held Monday at Trincomalee St. Mary's Girls College.
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Rape protest shuts down North and East

[TamilNet, Friday, 06 July 2001, 09:47 GMT]
Shops, schools, offices, courts and banks were closed and streets were mostly deserted in Sri Lanka's northern province, in the Tamil, Muslim majority areas of the eastern province and in the Tamil towns of the central province Friday in response to a call for a general shut down by the alliance of eleven Tamil parties and by Tamil trade unions to protest against the rape of Tamil women by Sri Lankan security forces. The Tamil parties held a protest demonstration in downtown Colombo Friday.
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Tamil parties criticize Colombo for re-imposing ban

[TamilNet, Friday, 06 July 2001, 05:45 GMT]
Tamil parties Thursday criticized the Sri Lankan government for re-imposing the ban on the Liberation Tigers under the Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA). The legislation proscribing the Liberation Tigers lapsed Wednesday with the Emergency Regulations.
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PA sees 'capitalist conspiracy' in no-faith motion

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 04 July 2001, 11:36 GMT]
Hundreds of workers of pro-government trade unions demonstrated at the Lipton's circus roundabout near downtown Colombo Wednesday. "The working classes have confidence in the PA government. Businessmen and millionaires cannot be allowed to overthrow the present government which came to power with the support of working community", demonstrators told state media units covering the protest.
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Undergrads exhort MPs to oppose Emergency

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 04 July 2001, 09:14 GMT]
Students of the Eastern University in Batticaloa held a protest demonstration Wednesday calling on all Tamil Parliamentarians to vote against the extension of the Emergency on 6 July. The protesting students held placards and shouted slogans condemning the rape of Tamil women by Sri Lankan security forces under powers granted them by the Emergency and urging the Tamil people in the northeast to support the protest Hartal called by the Alliance of Ten Tamil Parties on 6 July.
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Govt. must investigate paramilitary group violations -Amnesty

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 03 July 2001, 21:20 GMT]
An upsurge in arrests, "disappearances" and torture linked to paramilitary activity in the Vavuniya area must be urgently addressed by the Sri Lankan government, Amnesty International said today in a letter to President Kumaratunga. "The People's Liberation Organisation of Tamil Eelam (PLOTE), paid and armed by the government, has been perpetuating a pattern of systematic abuses," the organization said.
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Tamil teachers join protest against rape

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 03 July 2001, 18:57 GMT]
The Ceylon Tamil Teachers Union (CTTU) has appealed to its members and Tamil school children throughout the island to boycott schools on Friday 6 July to protest against the rape of a Tamil woman by policemen at a check post in Maradana, in capital Colombo on 24 June. A coalition of ten Tamil political parties and trade unions are planning to hold a protest rally in Colombo, and a general strike in the Northeast and the hill towns of the island. The twenty thousand member strong CTTU will be one of the trade unions joining the protest.
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Tigers release MV Missen crewmember

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 03 July 2001, 13:28 GMT]
The Liberation Tigers Tuesday released one crewmember of the vessel MV “Missen” who has been in their custody since 1 July 1997 to the representatives of the International Committee of Red Cross at Killinochchi. The sailor was identified as Jayantha Jayakody.
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PA denies LTTE banned under PTA

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 03 July 2001, 02:37 GMT]
The Sri Lankan Government categorically stated Monday that “the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam was banned under the Emergency Regulations (ER) on January 27, 1998”. The SL Government denied news reports that “LTTE was banned under the Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA)”. The Peoples Alliance Government argues that if the State of Emergency were allowed to lapse, the ban on the LTTE would automatically be revoked and that the Sri Lankan security forces would be deprived of the legal basis for carrying out their duties in the course of war.
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Air strikes will "irreparably damage" peace process -LTTE

[TamilNet, Monday, 02 July 2001, 08:29 GMT]
The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in an official statement issued from its headquarters in Vanni, northern Sri Lanka today, warned the Government of Sri Lanka that peace initiatives would be irreparably damaged if it continued with its intense aerial and artillery bombardment against the LTTE positions in Jaffna. Describing the air strikes as 'provocative aggression and calculated escalation', the LTTE accused the Kumaratunga regime of seeking desperate measures to mobilise the support of Sinhala nationalist forces with the purpose of overcoming the crisis brought by the no-confidence motion.
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Salli woman challenges case transfer

[TamilNet, Friday, 29 June 2001, 19:15 GMT]
The Colombo High Court Friday fixed the argument in the transfer application filed by the Commanding Officer of the Sri Lanka Navy detachment in Nilaveli, the first respondent in the Salli Habeas Corpus Application Case, for July 26. Nilaveli is 12 kilometres north of Trincomalee. Mr.Jeyakili was arrested by the Navy while fishing in the sea with two colleagues on 25 February 2000. The Navy released Mr. Jeyakili's colleagues two days later, but denied that it had arrested him. The fisherman is believed killed.
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Over ten thousand children sans birth certificates

[TamilNet, Friday, 29 June 2001, 18:19 GMT]
"Over ten thousand children, the majority of them living in areas held by the Liberation Tigers in the Trincomalee district, do not have birth certificates", said Mr.S.M.K.B Nandaratna, Senior Programme Officer of the Save the Children Fund speaking at a conference held Friday at Trincomalee District Secretariat. "The badly affected children live in the two most remote villages in the Mutur area, Cheenanveli and Uppooral. They find it very difficult to continue their studies and to partake in sports meets without their birth certificates," he said.
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Tamil alliance calls for 'Hartal' against rape

[TamilNet, Friday, 29 June 2001, 14:09 GMT]
The ten Tamil party alliance said in Colombo Friday that itís calling a general shut down in the Northern and Eastern provinces on 6 July as a protest against the rape of Tamil women by Sri Lankan security forces. Addressing a press conference Friday afternoon at the Grand Oriental Hotel in downtown Colombo, spokesmen for the Tamil alliance said that there would be a protest demonstration in Colombo and a strike in the tea and rubber plantations. They said that the rape of the Tamil girl at the Police checkpoint in Maradana in downtown Colombo on 25 June "once again underscores the fact that the draconian Emergency Regulations promote torture and rape of Tamil women by Sri Lankan security forces".
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Tamil day celebrations held in Trincomalee

[TamilNet, Thursday, 28 June 2001, 20:06 GMT]
(Photos) Several hundred students, teachers and principals belonging to Tamil and Muslim communities participated in a cultural pageant in their traditional dress to mark Tamil day celebrations in Trincomalee, Thursday. A cutout depicting The Mother Tamil ('Tamil Annai') was taken in a decorated vehicle from zonal education office to St.Joseph's' College, where Tamil day celebrations were held.
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Rights watchdog releases torture camp account

[TamilNet, Thursday, 28 June 2001, 15:50 GMT]
Asian Human Rights Commission said Thursday it is issuing an eyewitness account of extreme physical and psychological torture, overcrowding and hundreds of disappearances/ extrajudicial killings at an illegal military detention camp in Wehera, Kurunegala district, 25 miles from Kandy run by the man being appointed Sri Lankan High Commissioner to Australia, Major General Janaka Perera.
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Girl raped in Police checkpoint

[TamilNet, Monday, 25 June 2001, 15:23 GMT]
Three Policemen on duty at a checkpoint in downtown Colombo were arrested Monday for gang raping a girl in the early hours of the morning on Sunday. The girl was returning from work with a boy when she was stopped at the Police checkpoint near the Central Theatre in Maradana in downtown Colombo around 4.45 a.m. The Policemen had allegedly gang raped the girl after forcing her inside their checkpoint by threatening her that they would arrest and detain her on suspicion that she is a spy of the Liberation Tigers if she refused to get into the bunker. Any member of the Sri Lankan security forces regardless of his/her rank can arrest anyone if she/he has “reasonable ground” to suspect that the person has links with the Liberation Tigers under the provisions of the Emergency Regulations (18.1).
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Tigers deny shutting down civilian crossing

[TamilNet, Monday, 25 June 2001, 11:50 GMT]
The Voice of Tigers radio said in its morning news broadcast Monday that the Liberation Tigers denied a Sri Lanka army report that they had closed the main crossing point to the Vanni. No lorries from the Vanni came to the crossing point for civilians and international humanitarian agencies at Piramanaalankulam, 28 kilometres west of Vavuniya, on Saturday. The SLA Saturday issued a statement that claimed the lorries had not come because the LTTE had closed the crossing. “We are not aware of any disruption in the normal operation of the Piramanaalankulam checkpoint. The question of lorries coming from or going to the Vanni is a matter that comes totally under the purview of the Government Agent, not us”, the press officer of the ICRC, Mr. Harasha Gunawardene, told Tamilnet Monday, referring to the SLA statement which quoted the ICRC as saying no lorries had come from the Vanni on Saturday.
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SLN patrol boat captured - Mutur LTTE

[TamilNet, Saturday, 23 June 2001, 14:47 GMT]
The Liberation Tigers said Saturday that they captured a patrol boat from the Sri Lanka Navy Friday morning in a surprise attack in the sea off the Sampur coast, south of Trincomalee. The LTTE, in press note issued in Mutur Saturday, said that the Sea Tigers captured a grenade launcher, an outboard motor and a communication set from the SLN in the sea attack. SLN casualties are not known, the press note added. Sampur is controlled by the Liberation Tigers. Meanwhile, the TamilNet correspondent in Mutur said that Sri Lanka Navy gunboats opened fire on the Sampur village Saturday morning. Two civilians were wounded and a school and several houses were damaged in the SLN shelling, he said.
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Sixteen Indian fishermen remanded in Mannar

[TamilNet, Friday, 22 June 2001, 10:01 GMT]
Eight Indian fishermen who were arrested by the Sri Lanka Navy in the seas off Talaimannar on 20 June were produced before the Mannar magistrate by the Police Friday morning and were remanded by him until 4 July. Eight fishermen were arrested by the SLN on 18 June in the seas between Kachchathivu and Talaimannar. They were also produced before the Mannar magistrate the next day, 19 June. They too were remanded until 4 July. The sixteen Indian fishermen are being held in the Mannar remand prison.
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