Tamil parties join hill country protest

[TamilNet, Saturday, 10 March 2001, 14:38 GMT]
"Many want the Tamils to be slaves in this country. The Tamils of the north and east have problems and the hill country workers have their problems. We should give a fitting answer to the injustices committed against the estate workers by throwing out those who are trying to oppress us", said Selvam Adaikalanathan MP, the leader of the Tamil Eelam Liberation Organisation, addressing the Ceylon Worker's Congress' Satyagraha (fast) campaign in Hatton Saturday. The Satyagraha for a 4.5 Dollar raise in monthly wages has been on for 20 days with no solution in sight. It has snowballed into an unprecedented protest movement in Sri Lanka's tea producing hill country, cutting across party and trade union differences. The Ceylon Chamber of Commerce, meanwhile, said that the plantations have lost 400 million rupees so far because of the protest movement.
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SLA detains eight from refugee camp

[TamilNet, Saturday, 10 March 2001, 12:29 GMT]
The Sri Lanka army arrested thirteen persons from the Poonthottam refugee camp in Vavuniya between Monday 5 March and Thursday this week, a human rights activist in the northern border town told Tamilnet Saturday. Troops rounded up the Poonthottam junction on Monday and arrested 10 young men and women when they were ascertained to be inmates of the refugee camp from their special identity cards. Five were released the following day. Relatives said the SLA has so far not permitted them visit the others who were detained. The army searched the Poonthottam refugee camp both during daytime and nights on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, arresting three.
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War widows said increasing because of war

[TamilNet, Thursday, 08 March 2001, 22:19 GMT]
"Several young women live in the district, unable to come to a decision whether they are widows or not, as they do not know whether their missing husbands are dead or alive", said North-East Provincial Chief Secretary, Mr. G.Kirushnamoorthy, addressing a public meeting organized by the Provincial Ministry of Women Affairs at the Trincomalee Town Hall Thursday in connection with the International Women's Day.
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Marxists, UNP mark women's day, NGO flops

[TamilNet, Thursday, 08 March 2001, 16:30 GMT]
The women's wing of Sri Lankas radical Marxist Janata Vimukthi Peramuna (People's Liberation Front) staged a street play in the heart of Colombos business hub to mark International women's day.
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‘Prolonged detention of Jaffna journalist worrying’ - RSF

[TamilNet, Thursday, 08 March 2001, 11:30 GMT]
In a letter to the Sri Lankan Minister of Justice, Constitutional Affairs and National Integration, Professor G. L. Peiris, Thursday, Reporters Sans Frontières (Reporters Without Borders RSF), the Paris based media watchdog, called for the release of Subramaniam Thiruchelvan, the correspondent for the state run Tamil daily Thinakaran in Point Pedro in Jaffna. The journalist has been detained by the Terrorism Investigation Division (TID) since 2 January 2001. Robert Ménard, general secretary of RSF, notes in his letter that “this prolonged and excessive detention of a journalist from the Jaffna peninsula is a very worrying warning to all media professionals working there, especially since it has occurred a few months after the still unpunished crime against reporter Mayilvaganam Nimalarajan from Jaffna.”
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S.C Judge says Tamil rights were snatched away

[TamilNet, Thursday, 08 March 2001, 06:58 GMT]
"The vast majority of the denizens of the north and east seek the restoration of their rights and not devolution of power. These are the rights which were snatched away from them by virtue of a mathematical innovation where the majority in the two provinces were added to the majority in the seven provinces and thus made a minority in the nine provinces" said Justice C.V Vigneswaran in his ceremonial acceptance speech Wednesday on being appointed as judge to Sri Lanka's Supreme Court.
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US ambassador visits mass graves site in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 07 March 2001, 19:11 GMT]
"If you say that the LTTE is a terrorist organization then you must also accept that the Sri Lankan government is promoting terrorism in the country", representatives from the University of Jaffna told the US ambassador for Sri Lanka, Mr. Ashley Wills, during a discussion Wednesday in the northern town.
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Rivals join to pressure Sri Lanka's tea companies

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 06 March 2001, 22:16 GMT]
Long time political rivals in Sri Lanka's plantation sector, Mr.Arumugam Thondaman, leader of the Ceylon Workers Congress and Periyasamy Chandrasekaran, the leader of the Upcountry People's Front, joined forces Tuesday in a march from Holbrook Bazaar to Agarapatana in the Nuwara Eliya district in the island's tea producing central province.
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SLN clubbed, murdered father of seven -MP

[TamilNet, Sunday, 04 March 2001, 22:01 GMT]
The murder of Kandaiah Uthayakumar, father of seven, who was arrested Wednesday 28 February by the Sri Lanka Navy (SLN) in Savalakaadu in Mannar should be investigated and the persons responsible should be brought to book, said Mr.Selvam Adaikalanathan, MP for the Vanni, in an appeal sent to the Sri Lankan President Sunday. He told TamilNet that the SLN personnel had surrounded and searched Uthayakumar's house around 9 p.m. Wednesday. They had accused Uthayakumar of smuggling banned commodities to the Vanni and assaulted him in front of his crying children.
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Indian HC visits Jaffna

[TamilNet, Sunday, 04 March 2001, 18:43 GMT]
The Indian High Commissioner for Sri Lanka, Mr. Gopalakrishna Ghandi, visited war ravaged Chavakachcheri sector of Jaffna Sunday. Earlier in the morning the high commissioner had discussions with the Tamil United Liberation Front (TULF) MPs for Jaffna Mr. Mavai Senathirajah and Mr. E.R Sivamaharajah and Jaffna Mayor N.Raviraj about the situation in the north. The TULF told Mr. Gandhi that his government should take constructive steps to resolve the ethnic conflict in Sri Lanka.
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Eastcoast temple invokes peace

[TamilNet, Saturday, 03 March 2001, 22:05 GMT]
More than five hundred people took part in a special Yaga ceremony for peace Saturday at Naavalady, a coastal village on the outskirts of Batticaloa town. Mr.Joseph Pararajasingham and Mr. Pon Selvarajah, the Tamil United Liberation Front MPs for Batticaloa, senior government servants and the town's leading businessmen were at the Gayathri temple where the Yaga (raising of sacrificial fire) was held.
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Plantation protest spreads

[TamilNet, Friday, 02 March 2001, 17:55 GMT]
Shops and businesses were closed in Hatton, a main town in Sri Lanka's tea producing central province, Friday in support of a spreading protest by plantation workers demanding a long due wage raise of four hundred rupees. More than 2000 tea workers in Kandy district went on strike Friday and held protest fasts in local Tamil temples, a spokesman for the Ceylon Workers' Congress (CWC) told TamilNet.
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Fifteen Batticaloa undergraduates's lives at risk -union

[TamilNet, Friday, 02 March 2001, 17:29 GMT]
The students' union of the Eastern University in Batticaloa said Friday that it fears for the safety and lives of the undergraduates who were involved in organizing the Pongu Thamil program urging peace and expressing the political aspiration of the Tamil people. In a statement issued Friday evening the union said the lives of 15 students are at risk and appealed to the international community and human rights organizations that they face a threat from the army and paramilitaries. The statement said that the Pongu Thamil is a democratic, free and peaceful expression of the deepest political desires of the Tamil people and students.
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Tigers release Sinhalese fishermen

[TamilNet, Friday, 02 March 2001, 15:52 GMT]

The Liberation Tigers on Friday morning released two Sinhalese fishermen (on the left) who had been in their custody since last December. ICRC representatives transported D.U.Chandrabala and Ajith Kumarasiri to Vavuniya and handed them over to their relatives. Photo:TamilNet

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UK ban imposes restraints on peace process - LTTE

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 28 February 2001, 16:23 GMT]
Britain’s decision to include the Liberation Tigers on the list of proscribed terrorist organizations “will impose severe restraints” on the Norwegian initiative, the LTTE said Wednesday. The ban will “adversely affect Tamil interests and severely undermine the current peace initiatives [and] will encourage the repressive Sri Lankan regime to be more uncompromising, intransigent and to adopt a military path of State violence, terrorism and war” the LTTE’s chief negotiator Anton Balasingham was quoted as saying in a statement. However, the LTTE said that “irrespective of the British ban the Tamil Tigers would continue with the peace process and co-operate with the Norwegian facilitatory efforts.”
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Students condemn Batticaloa Brigadier's comments

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 28 February 2001, 11:56 GMT]
Undergraduates of the Eastern University demonstrated Tuesday condemning the statement of the Sri Lanka army's Batticaloa brigade commander that their 'Pongu Thamil' program had been organised by the Liberation Tigers. Col. V.L.R Anthonis, the SLA commander for Batticaloa, charged Monday at a meeting for local journalists and school principals that the Liberation Tigers had organised the 'Pongu Thamil' rally by students and teachers of the Eastern University on 20 February. .
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SLA clamps total embargo on Vaakarai

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 27 February 2001, 08:55 GMT]
The Sri Lanka army clamped a complete embargo on the Vaakarai region, 60 km. north of Batticaloa, Tuesday, preventing people from taking even essential goods such as rice, sugar, milk powder, kerosene, flour etc., which were permitted under severe restrictions on supplies to this region earlier. Soldiers at the Maankerni check post, currently the sole entry point to this large poverty stricken area in the northern corner of Batticaloa, seized all goods in the possession of civilians going to Vaakarai Tuesday morning, mostly their weekly and monthly provisions allowed in limited stipulated quantities by the SLA, purchased in Valaichenai. "I spent almost all my weekly wage on basic provisions for my family. Now I have neither money nor the provisions," lamented Manikkam Thangarasa, a wood cutter from Vaakarai who returned to Valaichenai Tuesday afternoon all the food stuff and kerosene he was taking home was seized by the army at the Maankerni check post.
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Media helps us stay on track- Col. Anthonis

[TamilNet, Monday, 26 February 2001, 23:36 GMT]
The condition of education in the north and east was discussed by the Sri Lanka army at its headquarters in Colombo said Colonel V.L Rohan Anthonis, the commander of the 23-3 brigade in Batticaloa, addressing a meeting with local journalists and school principals Monday. He emphasised that students should not take part in anti-government activities. "We want to make sure we are on the correct track" officer said, speaking about the importance of monitoring the media. Col. Anthonis, a former cricketer from St. Thomas' College, the island's most prestigious private school for boys, claimed that he and his staff look up the press daily to check whether army has wronged anyone in Batticaloa.
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Vanni ban leaves little to take

[TamilNet, Monday, 26 February 2001, 18:37 GMT]
A note at the bottom of a circular by Sri Lanka's Ministry of Defence listing the things that are not allowed to the Vanni sent to government officials in Vavuniya, reveals the extensive and arbitrary manner in which Colombo's economic embargo is imposed on the northern region.
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Collusion, apathy said skewing medical legal reports

[TamilNet, Sunday, 25 February 2001, 22:02 GMT]
"There is inordinate delay in getting medical reports on rape and torture from the Batticaloa hospital" said Suganthi Kandasamy, state counsel, addressing a seminar on Community awareness and aspects of the law Sunday in the eastern town. She noted that it is very difficult to prosecute cases involving torture and rape in Batticaloa because medical legal reports are either not available or in some important cases, even the preliminary examination of the victim is not done by medical officers assigned for the purpose at the Batticaloa hospital.
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