Black bands in Batticaloa University for ceasefire, self-determination

[TamilNet, Thursday, 25 January 2001, 15:03 GMT]
Students and teachers of the Eastern University in Batticaloa wore black bands on their arms and observed five minutes of silence at 12 noon Thursday to urge the Sri Lankan government to recognize the Tamil people's right of self determination and to reciprocate the extended unilateral ceasefire declared by the Liberation Tigers.
Full story >>

PA not capable of resolving conflict -Tamil coalition

[TamilNet, Thursday, 25 January 2001, 07:32 GMT]
"Tamil parties firmly believe that Peoples Alliance (PA) Government is not capable of bringing the ethnic conflict to an end. That is why we have formed a coalition to urge the international community to actively join the peace efforts by pressuring the Sri Lankan Government to stop fighting and start negotiations with the Liberation Tigers," said the representatives of Tamil parties during a meeting with the Swedish Ambassador held in Colombo on Wednesday.
Full story >>

"Right to life not guaranteed in constitution"

[TamilNet, Thursday, 25 January 2001, 05:10 GMT]
"The Sri Lankan constitution does not guarantee the right to life. Many human rights violations and murders are possible due to such loopholes in the constitution. The Sri Lankan government refused to sign an international convention that would have obliged it to act responsibly on the question of human rights violations and missing persons. It is the governmentís duty to explain the fate of persons reported missing. But it does not do anything. This is the reason why it is possible not to take any action to bring those responsible for murdering journalists to book" said V.T Thamilmaran, senior law lecturer at the University of Colombo Wednesday, addressing the 90 days remembrance meeting for slain Jaffna journalist Mylvaganam Nimalarajan in Colombo.
Full story >>

Union demands Tamil GA for Trinco

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 24 January 2001, 20:12 GMT]
Samastha Lanka Government General Employees Union has requested the President to take steps to appoint a Tamil civil servant as the Government Agent (GA) of the Trincomalee district. A resolution to this effect was unanimously passed at the fourth annual general meeting of the Trincomalee branch of the union held last week.
Full story >>

Kaluatara political prisoners say conditions dire

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 24 January 2001, 04:44 GMT]
Tamil political prisoners in the Kalutara maximum-security prison face persistent health and sanitary hazards while having to survive corruption and official apathy, human rights officials said this week. Six hundred and twenty nine Tamil political prisoners, mostly from the northern and eastern parts of the island, are incarcerated in the Kalutara prison, south of Colombo. Three were killed and seven injured in an attack on them by a mob of Sinhala convicts on 12 December 1997. The prisoners told National Human Rights officials who visited them this week that their cases were being prolonged inordinately.
Full story >>

Tigers extend unilateral ceasefire

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 23 January 2001, 12:41 GMT]
(CORRECTION) The Liberation Tigers said Tuesday they would extend their unilateral ceasefire by another month, and called on the international community to persuade Sri Lanka to "reciprocate favourably and resume negotiations in a cordial atmosphere of peace and normalcy." The LTTE's unilateral ceasefire was due to expire Wednesday night. The Tigers said they had made the decision "in conformity with the collective will of the Tamil nation which demands peace and also in compliance with the wish of the international community which pleads for a peaceful means of resolving the conflict."
Full story >>

Peace protest in Vaakarai

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 23 January 2001, 11:12 GMT]
Hundreds of people demonstrated in Vaakarai on Tuesday demanding the Sri Lankan Government reciprocate positively to the Liberation Tigers unilateral cease-fire and to begin negotiations with the movement. The protest was also intended to highlight that Tamil people's aspiration is their right to self-determination, organisers said.
Full story >>

SLAF jets bomb Trinco villages

[TamilNet, Monday, 22 January 2001, 15:35 GMT]
Sri Lanka Air Force jets bombed four villages about 8 km. south of Trincomalee around 5.30 p.m. Monday. Local residents said two Kfir jets attacked the villages of Chenaiyoor, Kaddaiparichchan, Samboor and Soodaikuda. Initial reports indicated extensive damage. But details of casualties and destruction of property are not available sources in Mutur, the town closest to the targets of Monday's air raid, said.
Full story >>

Jaffna journalist tortured in solitary confinement

[TamilNet, Monday, 22 January 2001, 13:57 GMT]
A senior Jaffna journalist held incommunicado by the Sri Lankan Police since 2 January was assaulted with pipes and tortured, Human Rights Commission officials who were permitted to see him this weekend said Monday. The journalist, Mr. Nadarajah Thiruchelvam, had been held handcuffed for 12 days in solitary confinement by the Terrorism Investigation Division of the Police, they said. The police have neither filed any charges against Mr. Thiruchelvam nor have produced him in a court.
Full story >>

Solheim to meet Balasingham

[TamilNet, Sunday, 21 January 2001, 18:48 GMT]
The Norwegian government, the official peace facilitator in the Sri Lankan conflict, is renewing efforts to persuade the government and the Liberation tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) to avoid actions which might escalate the present hostilities into renewed all out war, thereby impairing Oslo’s ongoing peace initiative, diplomatic sources in Colombo said Sunday.
Full story >>

Dissonant developments jar SLA music

[TamilNet, Saturday, 20 January 2001, 17:17 GMT]
The Sri Lanka Army went ahead Saturday evening with a music show it had organized in Batticaloa with an audience comprising government officials despite the general shut down in the east coast town and its suburbs. Tamil musicians and singers from Colombo who has been booked for the show did not turn up, sources said.
Full story >>

Self-determination call shuts down Batticaloa

[TamilNet, Saturday, 20 January 2001, 15:10 GMT]
The Batticaloa town was deserted Saturday as shops and businesses were closed and most people stayed indoors despite warnings by the Sri Lanka army against the Hartal (general shut down) called by the Independent Students' Union (ISU) to impress that 'the Tamil people's aspiration is the right of self determination and to demand that genocide in Sri Lanka be stopped and a fear free environment in which the Tamils can live peacefully be created'.
Full story >>

Uthayan journalist interrogated

[TamilNet, Saturday, 20 January 2001, 11:21 GMT]
Sri Lankan police on Saturday interrogated sub-editor of the Jaffna based Tamil daily 'Uthayan' regarding an interview with the LTTE's chief negotiator and political advisor Mr.Anton Balasingham which appeared on Friday. The journalist, Mr.Vithyatharan was interrogated for nearly two hours at his office said sources.
Full story >>

Call for peace hartal in Batticaloa

[TamilNet, Friday, 19 January 2001, 19:58 GMT]
The Independent Students' Union (ISF) in Batticaloa Friday called on people to observe a one-day hartal on Saturday in the eastern town in support of the campaign by Jaffna University staff and students and to urge the Sri Lankan government to reciprocate the Liberation Tigers' ongoing unilateral cease-fire. The call for hartal coincides with a musical show organised by the Sri Lanka Army said sources.
Full story >>

SLA demolishes homes in Jaffna suburbs

[TamilNet, Friday, 19 January 2001, 19:53 GMT]
The Sri Lanka army has demolished more than three hundred homes in the southwestern coastal suburbs of Jaffna town to construct large military facilities, said residents who visited the area this week. An official of a local NGO who went to inspect his home in Colombuthurai told TamilNet that coconut plantations in these suburbs were also destroyed.
Full story >>

LTTE "will not extend cease-fire amid Army offensive"

[TamilNet, Friday, 19 January 2001, 11:19 GMT]
The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) will not extend its unilateral month long cease-fire, due to expire next week, if the Sri Lankan government continues the current offensive operation in the southern sector of the Jaffna peninsula, the organisation's chief negotiator, Anton Balasingham, said Friday in a special interview to the popular Jaffna daily, the Uthayan. The LTTE's cease-fire deadline expires on January 24.
Full story >>

No faith in Colombo say Tamil parties

[TamilNet, Thursday, 18 January 2001, 19:47 GMT]
"We doubt that the Sri Lankan government really wants to bring about peace. We have sought the good offices of the international community because we have lost faith in the Sri Lankan government and because we suspect its motives", representatives of Tamil political parties told the ambassadors of Norway and the European Union (EU) in Colombo during discussions Thursday. Senior politicians and MPs of seven Tamil political parties, including the Tamil United Liberation front, the All Ceylon Tamil Congress, the National Workers Congress and the Tamil Eelam Liberation Organisation, took part in the discussions.
Full story >>

'Pongu Thamil' demos in Batticaloa and Vavuniya

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 17 January 2001, 17:09 GMT]
Demonstrations were held Wednesday in Vavuniya and Batticaloa in support of the Pongu Thamil rally in Jaffna. Hundreds of undergraduates of the Eastern University in Batticaloa and the College of Education in Vavuniya gathered for peaceful rallies urging the Sri Lankan government to start peace talks with the Liberation Tigers and to recognize the Tamil people's right of self determination.
Full story >>

Massive demonstration in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 17 January 2001, 12:28 GMT]
(News Feature) More than ten thousand people in Jaffna comprising university students, high-school students, residents and representatives and members of civil organisations demonstrated Wednesday, urging the Sri Lankan government to reciprocate the Liberation Tigers unilateral ceasefire and negotiate with the movement. Thousands more people were turned away by Sri Lankan security forces at check points set up along the major roads leading to the university, residents said. Reporters were not permitted into the university either.
Full story >>

Australian, Canadian Tamil students in 'solidarity' protest

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 17 January 2001, 06:53 GMT]
(Photo) Tamil Students from Sydney and Melbourne, Australia organized demonstrations Wednesday to coincide with that organized by the Jaffna University students urging the Sri Lankan government to negotiate with the Liberation Tigers. Over 400 Melbourne students and family members gathered together in front of the Victorian State Parliament House to "show their solidarity with their fellow students in Jaffna", organizers said. Similarly, over 250 Tamil university students of Sydney gathered outside the Consulate of Sri-Lanka, they said.
Full story >>