SLA exhorts against memorandum, arrests two

[TamilNet, Saturday, 17 February 2001, 09:29 GMT]
The Sri Lanka army exhorted the people of Jaffna over loud hailers Saturday not to put their signatures on the memorandum by students of the Jaffna University urging the British government not to ban the Liberation Tigers and stymie the peace process in Sri Lanka. Meanwhile, the SLA arrested two Jaffna University students who were collecting signatures for the memorandum at Navindil, near Vathiri junction, 23 kilometres northeast of Jaffna, around 10.30 a.m. Saturday morning. The two students have been taken to the Udupiddy SLA camp for interrogation, a University official said.

An army truck with the loud hailers was at the Prameswara junction near the Jaffna University campus. The army announcer urged passers by and students in Tamil not to sign the memorandum.

Jaffna University students have set up a public office by the campus for their signature campaign and to co-ordinate their Pongu Tamil (Tamil Upsurge) program.

The organisers of the program told Tamilnet that students are going to all the villages and towns in the peninsula to explain and muster mass support for the objectives of Pongu Thamil and to collect signatures for the memorandum.

The SLA announced in Batticaloa last month that holding demonstrations or protests urging the Sri Lankan government to reciprocate the LTTE’s ceasefire and start peace talks would be considered an offence against the state.