Intervention in East Timor urged

[TamilNet, Thursday, 09 September 1999, 23:01 GMT]
Tamil organizations in Australia and Britain today expressed solidarity with the people of East Timor and condemned the violence unleashed by pro-Indonesia militia after the East Timorese voted for independence from Indonesian rule. The Australian Federation of Tamil Associations (AFTA) and the London-based Tamil Information Centre (TIC) today issued press statements urging international intervention in the region.
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Youth escapes PLOTE custody

[TamilNet, Thursday, 09 September 1999, 13:24 GMT]
A youth who had been detained at the PLOTE's 'Malar Maalihai' (Flower Palace) detention camp at Rambaikulama in Vavuniya escaped last night and surrendered to the Police at a nearby sentry point said sources.
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Investigators find human skull

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 08 September 1999, 06:53 GMT]
A human skull was dug by investigators up around noon today from a pit in the general area identified near the Chemmani Sri Lankan army checkpoint last week by the key witness into the alleged mass graves of Tamils in Jaffna.
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Equal education opportunity lacking

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 07 September 1999, 20:03 GMT]
An acute shortage of Tamil medium teachers prevails in schools in the areas controlled by the Liberation Tigers, said Ceylon Tamil Teachers' Union (CTTU). According to the union, the ratio is one teacher for 70 students in these areas while in rest of the island there is one teacher for 22 children.
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Monks and soldiers trod war road together

[TamilNet, Sunday, 05 September 1999, 23:59 GMT]
A Sri Lanka Army (SLA) soldier was killed and three security forces personnel, including a captain, were seriously wounded when a military vehicle in which they were travelling was hit by a claymore mine blast at Madathadi Atchuvely, Jaffna around 4.30 p.m. today. Two Buddhist priests who were in the bus were also injured in the blast.
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Demonstration against acquisition of Palaly land

[TamilNet, Sunday, 05 September 1999, 19:12 GMT]
The New Left Front (NLF) staged a demonstration close to the Wellawatte market in Colombo this morning demanding that the government withdraw the gazette notification to acquire several hundred acres of lands belonging to Tamil civilians in the Palaly area of the Jaffna peninsula.
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"PLOTE goes on despite killings"

[TamilNet, Sunday, 05 September 1999, 19:08 GMT]
The funerals of PLOTE leaders, Ilango and Vino who were killed in a claymore mine blast on September 2, were held this afternoon in Vavuniya. The leader of the PLOTE, Mr. Mr. Tharmalingam Siddarthan, speaking to the gathering said that if murders of this kind continued the minority Tamils in Sri Lanka would be reduced to a great extent.
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Batticaloa mass graves investigation urged on massacre anniversary

[TamilNet, Sunday, 05 September 1999, 10:29 GMT]
Prayers and token fasts were held in Tamil temples and churches in many parts of the Batticaloa district today to mark the memory of the 158 Tamil refugees who went missing after they were arrested and dragged away by the Sri Lanka Army from the Eastern University campus at Vanthaarumoolai on September 5, 1990.
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Two mothers claim wounded Tiger

[TamilNet, Saturday, 04 September 1999, 20:41 GMT]
Two women in Batticaloa are claiming that an ex-militant whose memory has been affected by shrapnel lodged in his cranium is their son. The case was brought up yesterday by the two women at the office of the Tamil Eelam Liberation Organisation (TELO), a paramilitary group operating with the Sri Lanka Army (SLA) and the Special Task Force (STF) in Batticaloa. Both produced certificates of birth for the youth to claim him as their son.
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EPDP to file action against paper

[TamilNet, Saturday, 04 September 1999, 20:39 GMT]
Eelam People's Democratic Party (EPDP) sources said today that they intend to file action against the Sunday edition of the Sinhala daily, Divaina, for its lead story last week that the group was in cahoots with the Liberation Tigers.
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Petition for Rehearing denied

[TamilNet, Saturday, 04 September 1999, 15:33 GMT]
The United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia denied the petition for rehearing and suggestion for rehearing en banc filed by the Liberation Tigers on the 9th of August 1999. The petition sought to invalidate the provisions in the Anti-Terrorist and Death Penalty Act under which the U.S State Department designated the LTTE as a terrorist organisation.
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Mannar GA arrested

[TamilNet, Saturday, 04 September 1999, 10:20 GMT]
(Adds Photo) The Government Agent of Mannar S.M Cruz was detained by Police investigators in Colombo today. A Tamil Parliamentarian said that the GA had been summoned to Colombo by the Criminal Investigation Division (CID) this week.
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Claymore mine killed PLOTE leaders

[TamilNet, Thursday, 02 September 1999, 19:47 GMT]
(Adds photos)Police investigators confirmed this evening that the blast which killed the Deputy Leader of the People's Liberation Organisation of Tamil Eelam (PLOTE), N.Manikkadasan, was a claymore device fixed inside the ceiling of the group's office in Vavuniya Town.
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Oxfam aims to ease ethnic tensions

[TamilNet, Thursday, 02 September 1999, 15:51 GMT]
UK-based OXFAM, a leading foreign non-governmental organisation, has invited leading citizens of the Trincomalee district for a conference to look at easing tensions between Tamil, Sinhalese and Muslim communities.
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Foreign Ministry to research Tamil Nadu politics

[TamilNet, Thursday, 02 September 1999, 15:47 GMT]
Sri Lankan Ministry of Foreign Affairs is to soon set up a research unit that will work on policy making, new geopolitical developments, regional and international bodies. The unit will specially research analyse and report on the effects of the political dynamics of Tamil Nadu, the south Indian State which is home to about 60 million ethnic Tamils.
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PLOTE to file legal action

[TamilNet, Thursday, 02 September 1999, 03:37 GMT]
The PLOTE said today that it is contemplating legal actions against police in Vavuniya for assaulting one of its members for helping two children who were wounded in retaliatory fire by the Sri Lankan Security Forces.
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Two killed in security zone

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 01 September 1999, 17:38 GMT]
Two Policemen were killed in a grenade attack last night around 8 p.m. in the heart of Jaffna town. The policemen were walking by the Kottady fish market in the high security zone when unidentified persons had lobbed grenade at them.
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Ex-SLA troops identify further graves

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 01 September 1999, 16:04 GMT]
Former Sri Lanka Army Corporal Somaratna Rajapaksha and ex-soldier S.A.Perera today identified five more grave sites in the Ariyalai area in Jaffna where Tamil civilians arrested by Government troops were allegedly killed and buried.
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Temple play provokes SLA drama

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 01 September 1999, 07:26 GMT]
The trustee board members of a Tamil temple and the owner of a village sound service were grilled by the Sri Lanka Army (SLA) in Batticaloa yesterday over a play critical of the Sri Lankan government that was staged on Sunday night at the shrine's annual festival.
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Ex-soldiers identify more Jaffna grave sites

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 31 August 1999, 18:35 GMT]
Fourteen places where scores of arrested Tamil civilians were allegedly killed and buried by the Sri Lanka Army in and around Chemmani near Jaffna town in 1996 and 1997 were identified today by ex-soldiers convicted in the rape and murder of the Jaffna school girl Krishanthy Kumarasamy.
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